F 868 
.S8 B8 
Copy 1 



COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 




The pioneer dam of the public irrigation districts of California, at La Grange, on the 
Tuolumne river, irrigating about 300,000 acres. 



''Where the Land 

Owns the Water 



9 9 




ft®D^^ 




n 



ftglQDD^Ugld] 



J O H X T. B R A M If A 1. L 




MoDKSTO Herald 

MODKSTO, r.AI.rrOKNIA 



Stanislaus County ^ California 

/T /T^^V^ ^^^'^'^S"! ^-^^ ^^ this Stanislaus County, of which we are hearini^ 

i( li ^*' nnich, and yet in a vague and contradictory way?"' 

vVLAMylL asks the man from Missouri. That is the question whicli 

we shall try to answer in this little book, as plainly and 

frankly as possible, and leaving much unsaid. Stanislaus County is a fruit 

land; — witness her 250,000 orchard trees, (1910). It is a vine-land, as 

testified by her two million vines. The abundant grain crops of this present 

year, 1914, upwards of two million sacks, show that Stanislaus is equal to 

any of the counties of the Mississippi Valley as a grain country. A million 

tons of hay, dotting the landscape with stacks as big as Pennsylvania barns, 

demonstrate her capacity for hay production, and her thirty thousand or 

more dairy cows, mostly grades and thoroughbreds, feeding on a hundred 

thousand acres of alfalfa, sh<nv that Stanislaus must be a great dairy country. 

A Great Dairy Country 

Dairying is, probably, in a greater degree than any other branch of 
husbandry, the basis of agricultural prosperity, and in a wider sense, the 
foundation of the general welfare. Dairying improves the land, increases 
crops of all kinds, multiplies population of the most industrious and thrifty 
class, piles up bank accounts, fosters commercial business and encourages 
improved transportation, invites intelligent white settlement, and in every 
wav tends to the building up and development of the community. 

We will show our iiKjuiring friends in distant states that Stanislaus 
County is pre-eminently a great dairy country, and while also a region of 
wonderfully varied and diversified agriculture, in grain, fruits and vegetables, 
and in live stock of all kinds, it is, above all things else, a dairy land which, 
with the aid of her great i)nhlie irrigation systems (which make this county 
unique in California) her fertile soil and her great number of small farmers 
from the east, north and south, has attained the position of the leading dairy 
county on the Pacific Coast, a y)osition which all conditions indicate will be 
permanent. 



// Is Xo DrcaiJi 

The realitx' is wonderful enou^li. It is no dream. "Jhe San Joaquin 
\'alley." savs William Allen White, of Kansas, "is the most productive valley 
in the world." Stanislaus C'ount\- has more alfalfa, more dairies, more 
thoroughbred stock, and makes more butter — hig-h-grade, creamery butter — 
than any other countv in California — almost more than any two counties, in 
fact. This in itself testifies to the general prosperity and productiveness of 
the country and its desirability for residence and business, and as Stanislaus 
is the acknowledged banner county in the dairy industry on the coast, it is 
proper to make this the leading topic of this little i)reachment on life as it is 
actually lived in California. 

A Look at flic Country 

Let us look at the country, and consider why it is a good dairy country, 
and why it is a good country for live stock, fruit and other branches of 
agriculture as well as dairying. If I were a dairyman looking for a location 
somewhere between the two oceans 1 would look for a mild climate, good 
water and drainage, good markets and transportation, and a fairly productive 
soil. I have put soil fertility last, because the good farmer can generally 
make his soil to suit himself. All these conditions, ]ilus an unusually pro- 
ductive soil, are to be found in Stanislaus County, California. 

Location and Extent 
Situated in the great San Joaquin \'alley within a hundred miles of 
San Francisco Day, Stanislaus County is 1,486 square miles in extent, or 
236 square miles larger than the State of Rhode Island. Of its 951,000 acres 
the greater part is arable and about half is capable of irrigation. The valley 
floor, between the Sierra Nevada on the east and the Coast Range on the 
west, slopes gently toward the San Joaquin River, which flows northwesterly 
through the w^estern side of the county. The Stanislaus River forms the 
northern boundary, the Tuolumne flows through the middle, and its southern 
watershed is that of the Merced. All these rivers rise in the snows of the 
high Sierras and em])tv into the San Joaijuin. The total average run-ofT 
of the three first-named, which suppK- the irrigation needs of the county, is 
5,540,000 acre-feet. (California Conservation Commission.) 

llic Soil, — Xonc Better 
"The soils as a whole are light, the largest part of the area consisting 
of sandy loams and sands. These have suffered from continuous cropping 
to grain. In ])orti()ns of the area the soils are too shallow for the planting 
of deep-rooted croi)s, and in j^laces they have been injured by alkali and the 
rise of ground water; but, on the other hand, a very large part of the area 
consists of deep, well-drained, easily cultivated soils, responsive to irrigation 
and cultivation, especially suited to vineyards and orchards, and imder favor- 
able conditions producing almost phenomenal yields of all crops suited to 
the climate. 

[4] 







^Rj^^ziL.' 


;- -^iJ^ituM^^^^j^jr .» .v^ .* .;<• * e * ». i 


6;7-<, 




^*98 






i 


"'■ 






■^ 


MjIM 


1 


hI 


■ 


.. 


_:£2^i^^li 


^^H 


i 


H 




■ 


■m 


HHI 



'/7((' i^ardciis of the Stanislaus I'Dttmiis. >icar Oakdalc, arc not excelled for 

/productiveness. 

"Since the introduction of irrigation, the price of kind has advanced 
sharply, but the best kuid is still obtainable at a low price, and considering- 
the qtiality of soil, low cost of water, great diversity of crops, and advantages 
of close markets, probalilv no other area of equal size in the entire West 
offers greater attractions to the prospective settler than does this." ( Depart- 
ment of Agriculture Soil Survey of the ]^Iodesto-Turlock Area, 1W8. ) 

Uliere tJie Sun Makes Sugar 

In Stanislaus County there is a mild, brief winter, with all the rest oi 
the year for the crops to g;row and stock to fatten and produce. The mean 
winter temperature at Modesto, the county seat, is 48°, and for summer, 81°. 
For the extremes, the mercury occasionally, but rarely, drops to 2'&° or rises 
to 110°, but for a short time only, owing- to the moderating breezes from the 
bay, warm in winter and cool in summer. The rainfall is about 12 inches. 
Heavy winds or rains are rare. The last killing frost in spring may come in 
March, (last year there was none) and the first in autumn about the middle 
of November. (Department of Agriculture, Weather IJureau. ) In fact, 
there is none too much frost to rejiress the abundance of insect life, while 
there is sufficient heat, well distributed through the long growing- season, to 
make frecjuent crops of alfalfa and to mature fruit and grain with tlie 
maximum of starch and sugar. 

The Farm .Irea. and the Fanners 

In 1910 there were 64').400 acres in farms, of which 512.200 were 
improved. The census plays no favorites. It tells us that not only are the 
people of Stanislaus mostly farmers. ])ut tliat they are native Americans 
who own the land they farm. ( )f the 22.?21 ])opulation in 1910, 2,640 heads 
of families were farmers, and of lhe>e -1 784 owned the land they farmed. 
Of these owners, 1,.^44, or over 8f> ])er cent, were native white, 652 were 
foreign-born white, and just four were non-white. There were 296 native 
white tenants. The tendency is for the tenants to become owners. 

[5J 



A Land of S)iiall Farms 
Willi the iiiiprcn-ed conditions of ai^ricnlturc. farms nuillii)lic(l rapidly 
and the 951 farms in 1000 became 2.687 farms in 1910. Of these, 439 were 
from 99 to 50 acres; 1.0-k) were from 20 to 49 acres, and 515 were under 20 
acres. In the irrigated districts the average size of farms is about 25 acres. 

Rapid Gro:^<fli of Pop illation 
In 1900. after a period of decline, the po])ulation of the county stood at 
9.550. In the next ten-year period, "after the water came,"" the population 
rose to 22.522, a greater increase than was made by any other county in the 
State, save Los Angeles, which has the adxantage of a large commercial 
city and railroad center. The school census now indicates a population of 
32,000. 

The Schools of Stanislaus 
Few states spend so much upon their schools, in ratio of population, as 
California, and few have better schools or more capable teachers. In 1900, 
Stanislaus Conuty had 1.560 pupils in the schools and but one high school. 
In 1913 there were 5,619 pupils in the elementary schools, with 157 teachers. 
The eight high schools have 38 teachers and 662 students. The total ex])endi- 
tures for schools were $348,000; value of school property. $810,000. and 
the tax rate for elementary schools, .27, and for high schools, average, .47. 
Since 1903 all one-room schools in the county have been changed to two or 
three-room schools, and many separate primary schools have been built. 
School gardens and playgrounds, with appropriate equipment, have been 
installed in nearly every district and have been made an important adjunct 
of the school courses. 

Stanislaus is Prosperous 
Assessed valuations are among the few figures used in connection with 
real estate that mean more than they look. In 1890 the total valuation of the 
property in Stanislaus Countv was, in round numbers. $15,000,000. Then 
followed a drop in value, owing largely to the decline in the profits in grain 
farming, and the assessment dropped to $12,000,000 in 1900. Then came the 
inauguration of the irrigation districts and the change from dry farming 
to alfalfa and fruit. Assessments have greater specific gravity than platinum, 
but they rose to $24,000,000 in I'MO, and to $28 000,000 in l''n3. Irrigation 
pays the freight. Another good index of prosperity is found in the bank 
deposits. In 1900 there were but two banking towns in the entire county, 
with four banks, and $871,000 in de])osits. The big ranchers carried a buck- 
skin pouch of eagles, and the little ranchers carried a mortgage. In 1914 
there were twenty banks in ten towns, with $6,500,000 in deposits. 

Lilprarics and Women's Clubs 
Libraries and women"s chilis are imjiortant indications of a high degree 
of culture. Stanislaus County, in common with the other counties of the San 
Joaquin V^alley. enjoys both in a high degree. The countv library system 

[71 



gives the most rcniotc fdotliill fanner the privileges of the eeiitral hl)rary, 
(at Modesto, in tlie .Mcllenry lahrary). and also of the State Library, with- 
out expense. There are nineteen liraneh libraries in the count\-. The county 
Federation of \\'onien's ("lul)s has eight affiliated clubs, with over 400 
members, having tive clul) houses which serve as social centers for a wide- 
spread population. As an example of their activity, the Improvement Club 
of Modesto recently turned over to the citv thirty-five acres of beautifully 
improved parks, retaining fifteen acres for further improvement. 

Farm ProiJucfs Ai'crai^c $roo per . Icre 
The farm products of the county, as returned I)y the County Statis- 
tician, in 1013. a lean year, were: Grain, mostly barley. 1.060.000 bushels; 
beans. 10.000 bushels; sweet potatoes. 533.500 bushels; alfalfa hay, 991,000 
tons; melons. 72.000 tons; ])umpkins, 25.000 tons. Total value, $9,545,400. 
Orchard and vineyard jiroducts were valued at $1,685,000. Dairy products 
sold amounted to $3,012,836; poultry products. $370 000; animals sold and 
slaughtered, and wool. $1,441,000. Total value of all agricultural products, 
$16,054,000. The products of the 152.000 acres of irrigated land figure out 
something over $100 per acre. With something over 200,000 acres to be 
ultimately put under irrigation by the extensions now under way or planned 
for, there is every prospect that the annual revenue of the farms of Stanislaus 
Countv will reach, before many years, twice the sum now realized, or more. 

The Coze Tester's Reeord 

Space will not permit us to go into details regarding the dairy produc- 
tion or the manv fine herds of dairy cattle in the county. We may take, 
however, a summarv of the record of the Stanislaus County Cow Testing 
Association, whose secretary reports a steady improvement in the dairy herds 
of the county. For the sake of brevity, we will take from the report only 
the cows rating above 1^/ pounds daily, making a composite herd of twelve 
cows, grades of all breeds, averaging 4.05 fat test, 1.281 pounds of milk, 
equivalent to 51.9 pounds of butter-fat per month. l>rinka de Kol, a Holstein, 
milked three times daily, and testing 3})?. made /'-K^ ])oun(ls in May and 
75.? pounds in June. 

What .Ire the Irrigation Distriets^ 

Speaking of the advantages of diversified and intensive farming. Judge 
L. A\'. Fulkerth. of the Su])erior Court of Stanislaus County, says: "In no 
part of California is this better demonstrated than in the Modesto and 
Turlock irrigation districts in Stanislaus County, in the central and most 
fertile part of the .San Joa(|uin N'alley. These districts are (|uasi-])uhlic 
corporations, with boards of directors having similar powers and performing 
similar duties, within certain defined limits, as boards of sui)ervisors of 
counties. * * * The initial cost of the system was financed by long-term 
bonds voted bv the peo])le. the same as county or school bonds, and the 

[9] 



bunded iiulcbtcdiicss at present is small as compared with the selling value 
of the lands. bein<;- only about $15 in the Turlock district and $20 in the 
INIodesto district. The running expenses and interest on bonds is provided 
for by levy of yearly assessments which are collected in the same manner as 
county taxes and payable in two semi-annual instalments, making payment 
comparatively easy. The bonds run twenty and forty years, and after their 
retirement the only expense will be for maintenance, or the extension of the 
works. There are no 'water rights' separate from the land, as in privately 
controlled systems." 

The Irrigation Works 

The irrigation works, consisting of diverting dams on the Tuolumne 
and the Stanislaus, two large reservoirs and several hundred miles of canals, 
considered as an undertaking not of the federal or State government but of 
the farmers themselves, astonish all beholders. The La Grange dam. on the 
Tuolumne, shown on the cover, was built in 1893 by the Modesto and Turlock 
Irrigation districts jointly, at a cost of $550,000. It is 336 feet long and 
127 feet high, and is one of the highest overflow dams in the world. Water 
is diverted for the Modesto district on the north side and for the Turlock 
district on the south side, the filings being 4500 second-feet for the former, 
and 5000 second feet for the latter. 

The Goodwin dam, on the Stanislaus, was built by the Oakdale and 
the South-San Joaquin Irrigation districts jointly, at a cost of $350,000, and 
was finished in 1912. It is a double-arch dam, the main arch being 78 feet 
high, with a radius of 135 feet, and is designed to carry 260 second-feet for 
the Oakdale district and 850 second-feet for the South-San Joaquin district. 
These dams may be regarded as only a beginning of a still more extensive 
irrigation system of the future that shall put water on every acre of irrigable 
land in Stanislaus county. 

A Model for All the World 

These irrigation districts, organized and financed by the people and for 
the people, and supported (in the Modesto. Oakdale and Waterford dis- 
tricts) by taxation on land values alone, have furnished a model for the 
entire country, and foreign lands also. Commissioners from distant South 
Africa. Australia and South America have visited and carefully examined 
the working of the system, carrying back the most encouraging reports of 
its success. 

Good Roads 

Good roads are a necessity to the well-being of any community, and 
especially to one that produces a heavy tonnage of perishable commodities. 
The absence of rain through the long summer ensures dry roads, generally 
hard and level. Through the county, from north to south, extends the great 
State Highway, a smooth, paved boulevard that is being constructed through 
the entire length of the State, connecting with a similar road leading to 

[11] 



Portland. Oret^on. The county has ahout sixty miles of this splendid road- 
way. A lateral extends eastward to the mountains, via Salida and Oakdale. 
and another is projected westward, making- an alternative route from the 
county seat to San Francisco, via San Jose and Santa Cruz. 

Markets and Transportation 
Stanislaus County lias the best market in the world, San Francisco, with 
demands greater than the supi)ly. San Francisco is the American supply 
depot for all the western hemisphere and will be the chief entry port for the 
Panama Canal and its exchange of trafific. For the local trade, fruit and 
dairy products delivered at the railroad in the evening are in the San Fran- 
cisco market early the next morning. Two transcontinental railroads, with 
their branches, pass through the county and one of the electric traction lines 
exchanges traffic with a third, so that there is ample service and competition 
in the matter of transportation. Of great importance in this regard is the 
San Joaquin River, navigable for large boats from San Francisco to Stock- 
ton, and its old-time service south of Stanislaus County soon to be restored, 
making it a recognized factor in the adjustment of rates. Good, all-the-year- 
round markets, accessibility, good transportation and good roads, smooth 
and level, are the especial advantages of Stanislaus County. Now let us 
look at the country more in detail. 

The Newman Country" 

(T^r\ N THF natural order of precedence, Modesto, the county scat, would 
be entitled to first place in the Stanislaus County book. Put in this 
J I attempt to describe the county for the benefit of the home-seeker we 
will pay little regard to precedence. We are trying to tell the new- 
comer the real story of Stanislaus, — what the country is, how it came to be 
what it is, and what it is likely to become. The story of the growth of 
Stanislaus County to the position of the leading dairy county of the State 
begins with Newman, on the great West Side. 

Steamboats L'p the Riz'er 
Before the railroad came to the vallev tlie San Joacjuin River was the 
main thoroughfare, even as far as Herndon, which would have been called 
Fresno Landing if the eastern style had prevailed. Stern-wheel boats went 
u]) the river from the bay to I'urneyville (now Riverbank), on the Stanis- 
laus, and uj) the Tuolumne to .Adamsville, near the present city of Modesto. 
Much grain was carried on the river in those days, and also live-stock, 
hides, wool, lumber, and su])])lies for the mining camps. Indeed, the river 
is still under federal supervision and the bridges are built with draws. The 
big crops of the west side of the vallev in 1914 have revived steamboat traffic 
to the old ])ort of Grayson, on the San Joa(|uin wliich is but a few miles from 
Newman, the present west side nietro])o]is. 

[12] 





StuiiisUiiis county public libraries unci scliaols arc the latest ictird in arc'.iilccturc 

and sanitation. 

The Xc-iC Creamery Systoii 
About 1890 the new creamery system, with tlie refrigerating- ])rocess, 
.came in, along- with the cream separator, and these improvements revolu- 
tionized the dairy system and doubled the profits. To a great extent, also, 
the creamery revolutionized agriculture, ])utting into new use the ancient 
system of irrigation. The San Joaquin & Kings River canal ( Miller & Lux ) 
brought water ; the new Chilean clover, alfalfa, proved itself to be really the 
"best fodder," as its name implies, and the New Era Creamery, near the pres- 
ent town of Newman, the first to be established in the valley, was the natural 
result, and a success from the start, making about 100,000 pounds the first 
year. The Newman country, besides being an ideal grain and cattle cnuntry, 
became also a rich dairy district and population rapidh- increased. 

The Miller & Lux Canal 
Bound up in the history of the early development of the county is that 
of the Miller & Lux canal system, as it is called, or officially the San Joacjuin 
and Kings River Canal Coni])any. This is the oldest canal in the valley, 
dating from 1871, and is therefore the father of its irrigation. The system 
diverts water from the west bank of the vSan joa(|uin River above the town 
of Mendota, in 1-Tesno County, and the area tributary to it extends for 
seventy miles along the west bank of the river in three ctnmties. The water 
comjiany belongs to Miller & Lux, a noted firm of energetic German jjioneer 
cattle men who contri)l immense holdings of land on the west side of the 
valley. No water rights are sold ; the water is measured to the users and 
charged for on the basis of a flow of one cubic fo<it per second every 
twenty-four hours, anidunting to about $1.7.^ ])er acre i)er annum. 



A Creat Beef Caiiiitry 
There is a constant and growing demand for beef of the best (|ualitv, 
in San Francisco and for e.xport. Stock raising on the west side antl cattle 
feeding also, are increasing and thousands of head of "feeders" from the 

fl3] 



southwest are being- fitted for market mi tlic wild pasture of the hiHs and 
the alfalfa of the irrigated lands. lUit for the disorders in Mexico, ten thou- 
sand head of stock would now be grazing on the lung grass in the Coast 
Range valleys. Ihit there is an important movement towards providing at 
home the material for a better foundation for the beef cattle of this region. 
The Newman Herefords are a feature of every California State fair, and 
would win premiums if sent to the International at Chicago. The thorough 
l)rcd herd now numbers about 150, headed In' ^^nmg Donald and Hesiod 
Lad, the former being an importation from Iowa and the latter from Mis- 
souri. The four or five thousand head of beef cattle shipped from Newman 
every fall will soon show a strong admixture of the finer Hereford blood 
Many sheep, it may be added, are also fed in the mountain valleys. 

Hogs are an important element in the economy of the w^est side rancher. 
Where there are many dairies, and as every dairy may be called a hog ranch, 
it is evident that the industry is a considerable one. The common practice 
is to feed skim-milk and pasture on alfalfa, finishing ofif at about 200 pounds, 
without any grain whatever. A few farmers, however, have finished with 
grain, and this year, with an abundance of barley, many will adoj^t this 
method of feeding. 

An Electric Pumping Plant 
Besides the fourteen thousand acres irrigated l)y the "Miller & Lux" 
canal there are some two thousand more, all in alfalfa, irrigated by a system 
of electrically operated pump w-ells, lying between the canal and the hills, 
Three wells have been driven, on two sections of the Newman ranch, about 
sixty feet, connected uj) with two powerful electric pimips and capable of 
delivering 7,000 gallons per minute. The power is taken from one of the 
electric companies whose lines traverse the valley on every side. The 
advantages of electric pumping are great, despite the high cost of installa- 
tion. With such a plant the rancher is made independent. He has his own 
water, and he has it when he wants it. Moreover, it is pure for all domestic 
uses and is of course entirely free from the injurious weed seeds that often 
carry trouble for the alfalfa farmer in the ditch water. The accomj^anying 
illustration shows a part of the alfalfa field, sown last fall, in contour checks, 
irrigated by this plant. (See p. 24.) 

The Newman country has been descrilied as a great grain countr\ in 
the past. It is so still. In this present year, 1914. one may ride in an auto- 
mobile, on hard, level roads, mile after mile, and mile after mile, past solid 
areas of wheat or barley. ])rincipally the latter, lying against the foothills of 
the Coast Range, and two to three miles broad, sometimes broken l)y sec- 
tions or double-sections of alfalfa. Upwards of 300,000 sacks of grain will 
go down the river from the Xewman district this fall, besides many sheep, 
iiogs and cattle. Altogether, the grain cro]) from this district will reach a 
million and a half sacks. 

[15] 



j j two fir 



Newman 

(3^ri><\ I'lW'MAN is a bright, active town of al^out 1,500 population, with 
fine banks, the biggest grain warehouse in the valley, flour- 
commercial houses, schools and churches. The banks, 
although the first was organized as late as 1903, have about a 
million dollars in deposits. The schools, both the grammar and the high 
schools, are modern buildings and models of their kind. The Newman 
Creamery turns out from a ton to a ton and a half of butter daily, besides 
which about two hundred 10-gallon cans of cream are shipped. A dry- 
milk plant, to use the product of a couple of thousand cows, is projected. 
The cheese industry is also important, and profitable. The Hubbard & 
Carmichael dairy, milking between 350 and 400 grade Holsteins and Dur- 
hams with a milk test averaging 3.9, is making from 750 to 875 pounds 
per day, selling at 2 or 3 cents over the San Francisco market, which 
averaged 16 cents in 1913. The main feed of the cows is cut alfalfa, sup- 
pleiuented by silage from four 250-ton silos. 

Coiii'ciiiivit Market. 

Only 108 miles from San Francisco, w'ith direct train service, and with 
river transportation also, rich soil and unequaled health conditions, and no 
fancy prices for land, a splendid future for Newman and the entire west- 
side country, is promised. 

WHiile the town of Newman has been built up by and is the depot and 
shipping point of a great corporation ranch, it should be considered, never- 
theless, as an "open port" and a town that welcomes individual industry and 
enterprise. The lands too, are open to all comers and the prospective set- 
tler, if he likes the country, will have no difficulty in finding a piece of land, 
large or small, suited to his desires. 

Crow's Landing 

ROW'S LANDING is eight miles north of Newman, with a deep 
sediment soil common to all the west side country. It has two 
banks, two churches, three creamery stations and a first-class 
school, with a school garden that would take a prize in an inter- 
county competition. If any one thinks that Crow's Landing- is not a com- 
ing ])lace, let him look at the school, a fine new building costing $35,000. 
And, despite its name, suggestive of days that are past. Crow's Landing- 
is a coming community. That is to say that it has every requisite for a 
prosperous and growing town and surrounding country-side. It has the 
soil, the health conditions, and the transportation facilities. Alfalfa has 
long been established here, some of the fields 1)eing twenty-five to thirty 
years old and so deeply rooted as to require no irrigation. The soil is so 
friable that it does not pack down and harden by pasturing, which accounts 
[161 




for the endurance of the fields. One of these fields last year made five 
cuttings of one and a half to two tons per acre. Naturally the leading 
agricultural jndustry is dairying, and the district has over 4,000 cows. Grain 
produces heavy crops and fiiiit has given good yields, though so far there 
are few market orchards. ", ■:, 

Rcsciiihlcs Illiiiois 
Crow's Landing does not boast a large po])ulati(m. There are probably 
less than five hundred people within a radius of a mile. But if the town 
does not boast of population, or showy buildings, it is not because the 
country is not rich in resources. It is to her credit that she has not been 
exploited by ambitious promoters and land prices have remained within 
the limits of moderate buyers. Crow's Landing, in fact, has not awakened 
to a realization of her own advantages. The country resembles the level 
prairies of southern Illinois more than any other part of California, but in 
productiveness is more varied and infinitely richer. 

A Bottomless Soil 

The soil here is of wonderful depth, practically bottomless, in fact, and 
this applies, to a certain degree, to all the soils of the county ; but while the 
sandy loam is in places interrupted by a stratum of hardpan of varying 
hardness and thickness, here the soil is made up of an alluvial silt and the 
decomposed limestone and other rocks that form the Coast Range. There 
is no bed of clay, so familiar to the eastern farmer, and while there is a 
decreasing amount of humus as we go down below the surface soil, there 
is no lack of the finely divided mineral elements so lacking in the older soils 
of the East. Horace Greeley used to say that there was another farm 
under the old fields ; here there are a hundred farms underlying the upper 
one, and each quite as fertile, could they be spread out to the air, as the one 
now producing sixty or seventy bushels of barley to the acre without a 
pound of fertilizer. 

In-ii:;ati(>n by Canal or by P limiting 

The terminal district of the ]\Iiller & Lux canal, a great part of the 
Crow's Landing district is practically old river-bottom land and is sub- 
irrigated, while the land lying closer to the railroad is irrigated from the 
canal. Farther west, where the land is higher, it may be easily irrigated by 
pump wells, as is being successfully done on the adjoining Newman lands. 
While the initial expense of such a plant is considerable — about $5,000 for 
the well, motor and pump capable of irrigating a section (640 acres) of- 

land it has the advantage of being a part of the land iniiirovemcnt and 

responding to call at any time. 

Wide Adaptability 

Excepting citrus fruit, and such vegetables as do best on a dry. light 
sand, the Crow's Landing country, and all this San Joaquin River land, is 

[17] 




T^v^H'W^'^- 




adapted to all crops of this latitude and will produce them in the greatest 
abundance. Alfalfa and all kinds of fodder plants ; potatoes, and all manner 
of root crops ; grain of all kinds, and every variety of pit fruit will grow 
rapidly and produce abundant crops in this deep, rich, moist, alluvial soil. 
The foothills contain valuable deposits of gypsum, building stone and various 
minerals. 

Patterson 

-^-ir-K;[\ ATTERSON is distinctly a garden town. It is a clean town, a 

nA dry town, a live town. The young city has 800 people and the 

,<^w colony numbers about 1,500. It has a bank, — one of the prettiest 

-ILL in the State,— built at a cost of $25,000, and with over $100,000 

in deposits. There is a Chamber of Commerce and a newspaper. The 

Administration building and Postofifice. in a beautiful park in the center 

of the plaza, is a very attractive building. The great steel water tank, larger 

and higher than found in many larger towns, testifies to the up-to-date city 

water-works and ample fire-protection, and the fine new grammar school, 

and equally fine high school now building, — these the costliest buildings in 

the town, — show the care that is exercised in the miatter of education. The 

Women's Improvement Club and a study club help to make a pleasant 

society. 

Patterson is another name for push, or in the Spanish, pronto. There 
have been a good many model towns started in California, but some of them 
have not survived the measles. Patterson is out of short pants and is the 
Young America of the west side. The story is told how the elder Patterson, 
a New Yorker, having purchased the old Spanish grant known as the Rancho 
del Puerto (the name signifying a port, and testifying to the importance of 
the river navigation,) of some leagues of land, locked horns with the big 
Miller & Lux corporation, and the big irrigation canal was stopped at the 
rancho's southern boundary. The San Joaquin River, with its three million 
or more acre feet of mean annual run-ofif, ran past the rancho's front, the 
riparian rights appertaining to the grant, and it might be cheaper to pump it 
half a hundred feet than to bring it down a hundred miles by gravity. So 
a canal was built to carry the water up hill, and pumping works were 
installed to lift the water. 

A Modern Rivcr-Pitiiipiiio- Irrii^afioii Plant 
In Egypt one continually hears the creak of the sakya, or big wooden 
water-wheel, by which the [jatient oxen raise the water of the Nile to the 
fields and date orchards. Sometimes the fellah women, no less patiently, 
carry the water on their heads. On the San Joatjuin we harness the moun- 
tain streams fed I)\- the melting snows of the Sierras, carry it on cop])er 
cables a hundred and fifl\- miles, and set it to work turning centrifugal 
l)umps lifting fift\- thousand gallons a minute at the first step of twentv feet. 

[19] 





Electric puiiips lift ivater from deep wells and from the San Joaquin river. 
Power costs about one cent or less per K. W. hour. 

Four miles of concrete-lined canals and two hundred miles of laterals, with 
relay stations for lifting the water to the higher levels, make an irrigation 
system that is rightly regarded by experts as being one of the most complete 
in California. The combined capacity of the pumping stations is 1,645 horse- 
power, capable of supplying three acre-feet of water yearly to the 19,000 
acres in the tract. As the irrigation duty of water here is estimated at 
two acre-feet, it will be seen that the needs are amply provided for. The 
water rights go with the land, and the cost of operation, or the ratio paid 
by the users, has been $1.50 per acre foot for the past three years. The 
water company stock will automatically pass to the owners of the land when 
three-fourths of the tract is sold and deeded, which will be, probably, by 
the summer of 1915. The Patterson farmers will then own and control the 
finest and most up-to-date co-operative irrigation plant in the country. 

Beans Arc Profitable 

Beans arc found very profitable in this rich, mellow land, and are often 
planted to follow grain hay, or between the young orchard rows. Crane 
and Cairns planted forty-five acres of Lady Washingtons as an experiment 
and harvested twenty-five sacks to the acre, — eighty pounds to the sack. They 
have set out ten acres of walnuts and are growing beans between the rows. 
There are about 1,500 acres of beans in the Patterson country. 



Varied Industries 

On its west side, against the foothills, Patterson is still a live-stock and 
grain country ; through the center it is a fruit and poultry district, and 
toward the river a dairy country, these industries of course lapping over 
and intermixing. Patterson has no creamery as yet, but ships much sweet 
cream, about 700 cans of sweet cream per month, and this is being rapidly 
increased. As there are some fourteen thousand acres of alfalfa on the 
Patterson farms, capable of maintaining as many dairy cows, it will be 
[20] 







^''^'''''^^^'-'^''^^^^^ 



i'iiitrrsdii. iii-iij- tile ."^(111 Joaqiti)! rrvcr, is one of tlic cleanest, prettiest and most 
up-to-date tou'iis in the valley. 

seen that there is plenty of room for the dairy farmer. Hogs and poultry 
are a profitable adjunct of the dairy and there seems to be no limit to the 
demand for these products. The Patterson Hay Producers' Association 
is a strong organization of farmers. 

Orchards, especially of peach and apricot, are being put out in all 
directions, and .walnuts, too, are being extensively planted, so that in a short 
time, almost before the people are aware of it, Patterson will take its place 
as a leading fruit region. Already twenty-five hundred acres on the Patter- 
son farms have been planted to fruit and nuts. Bartlett pears are also being 
extensively planted, as the soil is found very suitable for this fruit and 
there have been detected no indications of blight. 



Palm and Oleander Bordered Areiiiics 

The avenues radiating from the central plaza are ])lanted with palms, 
oleanders, eucalyptus, sycamores, magnolia, and other trees, and even now 
the oleanders, which grow to a height of fifteen feet or more in this climate, 
are showing a line of brilliant bloom ten or twelve miles long. In every 
direction are seen rows of pretty bungalows, usually with barn, poultry 
house and other accessories to the rural home. Las Palmas Avenue, a 
o-ravelled boulevard lined with fine homes, stretches out three miles to the 
east, to a beautiful park on the bank of the San Joaquin River. 

Grayson a)id JJ'estley 

Grayson is the old river town on the San Joacjuin. already alluded to, 
where steamboats take cargoes of grain and hay for the tidewater ports. It 
requires no prophet to foretell a future of activity and ])rosperity, and well- 
filled warehouses and busy wharves in this and other river towns in the not 
distant future. Westley is west of Grayson, on the railroad, and is building 
up a prosperous comnumity, mainly on a grain foundation, but soon to be 
supplemented by dairy and orchard. 

[21] 




This is one of tlw sclumls -iCliosc Sfaiiisli aycliitcctiirc iiii'^ht i/< , r/; , I-,iIIut 

Scrra himself. 

The Modesto Irrigation District 

CJ^r] T IS unnecessary, in this brief space, to repeat the story of the enter- 
prise of the people in forming the Modesto Irrigation district and 
M building the system, and of the wonderful progress that has resulted. 
That has been covered in the first chapter. The State Bond Com- 
mission, in a recent decision on the legality of a bond issue of $610,000 for 
improvements, pointed out that this was but a small portion of the indebted- 
ness that the district could carry if necessary. The water right was assessed 
by the commission at $1,225,000, and the land values, $15,291,000. 

Sixty-nine Square Miles of Emerald Green 
Like a fairy tale is the story of the turning of the sandy stubble and 
dry pasture land of central Stanislaus County into a blooming garden. But 
we will give the reader the cold facts and let him supply the imagination 
for himself. The report of the Modesto Irrigation district for 1914 shows 
that of the 52,381 acres irrigated, 44,261 acres, or 84.5 per cent, are in 
alfalfa ; sixty-nine square miles of emerald green. Some of this produces 
as high as ten tons to the acre, but figuring at five tons, which is a fair 
average of the entire acreage, we have 220,000 tons of the best hay ever 
fed to cows. The table of crop acreage, as compared with 1909, follows: 



Crops. 1909 

Alfalfa 16,306 

Trees 2,240 

Vines 2,404.5 

Corn, (milo ) 

Tomatoes 

Beans . 

Millet 

Oats 

Potatoes 



1914 

44,261 

2,744 

1,768 

5^)1 665 

8.5 
107.7 264 

17 

6 All grain, 2,432 
34.5 Garden, 247 



Total 22,136.5 



52,381 
[23] 









■*'v^<t;,^^Si;^ 






The rapid increase in acreage, 137 per cent in five years, will be noted, 
and the striking increase in alfalfa, and in grain (on alfalfa sod). Vege- 
tables of all kinds have increased, while the vineyard area has diminished. 

[h. Sixtcoi Tliousaiid Dairy Cozvs 

The. county statistician reports 14,760 mature dairy cows for the 
Modesto district in 1913, and there should be nearly sixteen thousand cream- 
producers in the district this year, too small a number, however, for our 
44,000 acres of alfalfa. Their proportion of the butter-production of the 
county this year, figured on a basis of nine million pounds for the county, 
would be 4,500.000 pounds. The figures are amazing. l)ut it sliould not be 
forgotten that Stanislaus County made over 8,000.000 pounds of butter last 
year, and it wasn't a good butter year, either. Sixteen thousand cows, and 
close to five million pounds of butter. — and the Modesto Irrigation district 
hasn't got its growth yet ! 

Tlioroitghbi'cd Dairy Stock 

Stanislaus County, and the Modesto Irrigation District especially, has 
become noted as the home of the finest thoroughbred dairy stock on the 
Pacific Coast. Dairymen have become stock breeders, selecting their founda- 
tion stock from the best breeding farms in the East. A hundred and fifty 
stock sales have been held in this district in the past six months, the Hillier 
consignment sale of a hundred registered Jerseys last xA.pril being the most 
noticeable and giving Modesto the rank of the leading dairy cattle market 
west of the Mississippi Valley. 

The Fciiadcra Jerseys 

Guy Miller's champion herd of Jerseys would alone give a national 
reputation to Stanislaus County. Every cow is in the advanced register and 
the head of the herd, Altema Interest, an" animal of the finest breeding, has 
been for the past two years grand champion Jersey l)ull at the California 
State Fair. Pearl of Venadera has just ^tiished a yearly test with a record 
of 9,968.8 pounds of milk, average test. 6.03; butter- fat production. 601.27 
pounds, the second highest producing Jersey in California, (ioldie of \'ena- 
dera, 3-year-old. made 469.4 pounds ; Helle of V., 461.8 pounds, and Amethyst 
of V. 391.3 pounds. Lorna of Venadera was awarded the silver medal of 
tlie American Jersey Cattle Clul) for being the second best producing cow 
of that breed in the United States in 1911. The herd, in 1913, at the Cali- 
fornia State Fair, butter-fat test, took first in aged cows, three-year-olds, 
and two-year-old heifers. On official test last year the herd of twenty cows 
made an average of 362 pounds of butter-fat. This was worth, at the 
Modesto creamery. $2,606.40. This is the kind of blood that is building up 
the herds of Stanislaus County. 

[25] 



The Crcainciij^ I h'lstrins 

The Creanicu]) herd of Tlolstcins of M. M. noUlridi^e stands at the top 
of the black-and-whites. Pontiac Ikirke is the liead of the herd and is a 
sire of great promise. His grandsire is King of the I'ontiaes, lialf-hrotlier 
of Pontiac Lass, (4-l-.l(S pounds in 7 days). His sire's dam is Ruby de Kol 
Burke, and his aunt is Sadie de Kol Burke, the champion record cow. 
Novena Creamcu]) and Modesto Cleopatra are cows with records of 69 and 
70 pounds of butter-fat per month. Twenty-two cows of this herd have a 
weekly record in the advanced registry of 18 to 28 pounds of butter in seven 
days. Every cow in the milking string has an A. R. O. record. 

Pigs Prcscrz'iiig Philippine Peace 

Hogs are called mortgage-lifters in Kansas. Here they are raised for 
ornament, on the principle of handsome is as handsome does. The Modesto 
Creamery maintains a hog ranch of its own. a mile away, on the river. 
Buying butter-fat above the market price for butter does not leave much 
margin for profit. So the creamery turns its buttermilk into pork, adding 
crushed barley to the feed. From 200 to 300 hogs are kept, and with barley 
at a dollar a hundred and pork at 8>< cents, it is pretty clear that the hogs 
raise the profits. 

The Duroc-Jerseys of W. A. Daggs, near Modesto, have a wide reputa- 
tion. In Hawaii, one of the big sugar planters has some of the stock, and in 
the Philippines some wealthy Moros, retired from the piracy business, are 
increasing their fortunes by raising red pigs of the stock of the Datto Daggs, 
purchased by a paternal government at ^Modesto, U. S. A. Modesto King, 
Rose May Hansel and Dolly Durcc Dahlia have enough blue ribbons cap- 
tured at the fairs to make a bed-spread, if they needed one. Mr. Daggs has 
about 150 hogs and his sales last year were about a hundred head, big and 
little, at an average of $22 each. Thirty acres of alfalfa grow the forage, 
and the nearby creamery supplies the buttermilk. 

* Peaches and Apricots 

Peaches and apricots are the principal orchard fruits of the Modesto 
district. Here is a sample of the small, or garden orchard: J. S. Rhodes, 
near Modesto, has four acres of Elbertas which brought him, last year, 
$1,929 gross, or $428 per acre. The expense of irrigating, cultivation, 
marketing, etc., is figured at Z:> per cent, leaving $1,286, or $321.50 per 
acre net. In the past three years the orchard,, which was planted in l')07, 
netted $2,400, or $200 per acre, ])er annum. No artificial fertilizers have 
been used. 

A Moniivieiit to Irrigation. — Figs 
The McHenry Ranch or as it is locally known, the "Bald Kagle Ranch," 
is an example of eastern general farming as apjilied to the California ranch. 
Robert ^NfcHenry came from Xew luigland l)efore tiic era of irrigation, 

[27] 



bought a big- grain ranch on the Stanislaus, introduced blooded stock and 
planted orchards and vineyards. Among other things he planted forty 
acres of figs. Then he championed irrigation and some of the old settlers 
pronounced him crazy and an apostle o'f destruction, but his lasting monu- 
ment stands in the irrigated fields, gardens and orchards of Stanislaus 
County. The fig orchard, forty-two acres of White Adriatics, yields an 
average of five carloads of thirty tons a season, which arc contracted at 
$70 a ton, making a gross revenue of $250 per acre, i'ractically the only 
expense is picking (from the ground), and hauling to Modesto and River- 
bank. There are also 120 acres of vineyard and an ai)ric()l orchard. 

Beans Like Good Land 
Beans on alfalfa sod or following grain make a paying crop. Shoemake 
& Warner have 300 acres in black-eyed beans which promise twenty sacks 
to the acre, or 1,600 pounds. At the ruling price of 4 cents this would make 
$64 per acre, and as the straw makes good hay we may credit $5 more, 
making $69 per acre. There are about 2,500 acres of black-eye and red 
Mexican beans in the county, with fine prospects. 

Pushing the Egg Button 
'T have traveled from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico and from 
coast to coast, and nowhere have I seen a better location for poultry where 
climatic conditions, soil and feed are all favorable, than here in Stanislaus 
county." So says John H. Myer, of the Myer Hatchery, between Modesto 
and Empire. He carries about a thousand White Leghorns and hatches six 
to eight thousand chicks in a season. Electric equipment is the important 
feature of the Bald Eagle Poultry Ranch of the McHenry Brothers, on their 
place west of Riverbank. They have about 1,500 White Leghorns in new 
and well arranged buildings, one of which is a concrete incubator house 
where the hatching is done by electricity, the heat being contrtjlled by ther- 
mostats. The brooders are also electric heated and the laying houses are 
supplied wath electric light during two hours of the winter mornings to give 
the hens so much more scratching time. Last spring 2.500 chicks were sold 
at $15 per hundred. It is figured that in egg jiroduction the average hen 
makes very nearly $2.00 per year. 

Cost of An Electric Pumping Plant 
On the banks of the Tuolumne River, some five miles west of Modesto. 
W. F. Dufify has installed an electric ])umi)ing plant with a 40 H. P. motor 
and a 12-inch centrifugal pump to lift water fifteen feet from the river and 
put it on a couple of hundred acres of level land. The i)lant cost aliout 
$2,000. and taking current from tlie Sierra & S. I-". l'"-lectric I'ower Co.. wliich 
built a transmission line of six miles to reach the plant, it is figured that it 
will cost $15 to irrigate the eighty acres now in alfalfa and oats, or $.187>^ 
per acre, per irrigation. 

[29] 



Modesto, the Irrigation Capital 

)'-Tpn-r\ ( )l)h',S1'< ) is ccleliraU'd far and wide as the (harden City of tlic 

// \\ Sail joa(|uin N'alley, the Spotless Town of Stanislaus, and the 

^( ^1/ Improvement Club's Paradise. And the praise is fairly earned. 

Modesto is also the garden gateway of the Yosemite National 

Park. In a recent article in Sunset Magazine, Alexander Powell said : 

"We chose the route (to the Yosemite) through Modesto because I was 
curious to see the surrounding countryside, which was enjoying, so I was 
told, the benefits of a modern version of the Miracle of Moses, water having 
been produced where there was no water before by a prophet's rod in the 
form of an irrigating ditch. As a result of this sudden prosperity, Modesto 
is as up-to-date as a girl just back from Paris. Its lawns and gardens have 
been Peter Hendersonized until they look like the illustrations in a seeds- 
man's catalogue ; the architecture of its schools and public buildings is so 
faithful an adaptation of the Spanish mission style that they would deceive 
Father Serra himself (the old padre was, I believe, a trifle near-sighted) ; 
and its roads would do credit to the skill of J- MacAdam." 

The San Joaquin Valley may well be proud of Modesto. With a popu- 
lation of 2,402 in 1900, showing an actual decline of fifteen per cent in the 
decade, Modesto had 4,034 in the city limits in 1910 and is now credited by 
the city directory with 8 000. Two of the finest hotels in the interior of the 
State, fireproof 125-room buildings costing $150,000 each; six banks with 
over $3,000,000 in deposits, nearly half of which is in savings banks ; five 
beautiful parks ; water of unusual purity ; ten miles of asphaltum-paved 
streets, wide and arched with elms and sycamores ; electric light and gas ; 
septic sewerage system ; a free market on the court-house square ; a fine 
Public Library, the gift of the public-spirited Oramil McHenry; numerous 
churches, notably the First Presbyterian with its Modesto Christian Asso- 
ciation, gymnasium, swimming pool, etc. ; two daily newspapers, well-stocked 
commercial houses, and six garages, — and only four hours from San Fran- 
cisco by express, Modesto is one of the finest and healthiest residence towns 
in all California. 

The manufacturing industries of Modesto are not extensive and are 
naturally confined to preparing the raw agricultural products for consump- 
tion in the distant market. Two creameries, with a monthly output of 255,000 
pounds; an alfalfa mill with a capacity of 4,000 tons in the season, and a 
fruit cannery, enlarged and re-equipped last year for an output of 50,000 
cans daily, make a market for but a small part of the products of our farms 
and orchards. With these products in abundance and of the highest quality, 
it will be but a short time before the manufacturers of food products will 
take advantage of the opportunities here presented. It may be added that 
Modesto has the only locally-owned gas works in the valley. 

[30] 




J 







■■i 


^^^f^ 




.■. , 


■J 


w- , 


§.> ■ 


^^ 


.HP 



l-Uicalyt'tiis O'i'ritne. and a siiuill puiiiping f^Uiiit /Vr/'.i; ((//'»,;,' a farm lro)n the 

Tiiolnnme rk'cr. 




Salida 

EVEN miles nearer the bay than Modesto, in the richest section of 
the irrigation district, SaHda. with its big alfalfa mill, its grain 
and hay warehouses and its heavy shipments of vineyard and 
orchard products, is a town of great promise. On either side 
stretches a wide expanse of alfalfa, broken by orchards and vineyards. The 
produce of its dairies is taken by the creameries at Modesto, and the county 
town is its principal market. In time, Salida will doubtless have its own 
creamery, and its fruit packing house also. 

A Vineyard Pioneer 

Thompson Seedless is the name of a grape that is making new history 
for California. It is an excellent raisin grape of the Sultana class, and also 
a good table grape and so can be utilized for either market. It is a heavy 
yielder and commands a price usually considerably above the average. T. H. 
Kewin was the pioneer in planting this grape in this part of the valley about 
eight years ago and his forty acres of strong, healthy vines promise an 
abundant yield, which means seven or eight tons to the acre. An adjoining 
forty of Zinfandels looked almost as good. Almond trees border the vine- 
yard, ten-year-old Ne Plus Ultra, and will ])ro(luce at the rate of about a ton 
to the acre, the trees being loaded down with fruit. 

The vineyard of George Covell is another of the early vineyard plant- 
ings of the county and one which ranks high in productive value. Here are 
500 acres, mostly in wine grapes, that produce all the way from five to seven- 
teen tons per acre, according to seasonal conditions, and bringing from $12 
to $20 a ton, according to demand and quality. Present market conditions 
indicate a price of $15 a ton or more. A few acres of Thompsons and Em- 
perors give great promise. The expense of cultivation, pruning, etc., is 
estimated at $10 per acre and picking and hauling to station about $1.75 per 
ton. Table grapes cost about $5.00 a ton for picking and the packing about 
35 cents per crate, the crates of 28 pounds bringing 60 cents to $1.25 f. o. b. 

[31] 



Dairies 

Among- the dairies that of J. M. Bomberger will do for an example to 
demonstrate actual experience in this line. By careful selection and watch- 
ing his opportunities Mr. Bomberger, who started with a small herd of 
grades, has got together as pretty a string of Jerseys as can be found, and at 
no great expense. "It costs no more to raise a full-blood calf," says Mr. 
Bomberger, "than a scrub, and it costs no more to feed a high-bred regis- 
tered cow than it does one without a pedigree, but the thoroughbreds will 
pay better, in every way." Mr. Bomberger is reluctant to boast of his own 
cows, but he is an enthusiastic advocate of the Jerseys for butter-fat pro- 
duction and says that they will produce 500 pounds of butter-fat at $8 less 
cost than the Holstein. As for the calf, he insists that with registered, good 
performing stock, there is no necessity whatever of sacrificing to the butcher. 
Good Jersey calves are always worth money, and the dairyman-breeder 
pointed to a pen full of little fellows worth, he said, from $50 to $100 each. 

Ten Tons of Hay to the Acre 

Ten tons of alfalfa to the acre is the record of A. S. Bomberger, but 
this is exceptional, even for this distinctive alfalfa district. The field is 48 
acres, sown four years ago. The soil, a deep, rich, sandy loam, benefiting 
somewhat by sub-irrigation. Up to October 25th last the alfalfa was irri- 
gated four times and was cut five times, with the total yield of 478 tons. The 
crop brought $5,353.65, and deducting expenses, a net of $4,053, or $84.44 
net per acre. No fertilizer was used other than a slight top-dressing of 
gypsum. About half the field was top-dressed the previous winter with 
stable manure, ten loads to the acre. A neighboring dairyman pointed out, 
however, that these returns would have been doubled if the alfalfa had been 
fed to cows producing a pound of butter a day, and the fertility of the land 
would have been increased. John Velthoen has done as well. 

Alfalfa Mill 

The Salida alfalfa mill, with a capacity of 5,000 tons in the season, and 
two smaller mills grinding about as much, make a home market for the sur- 
plus crop. There is a good market, by the way, at Panama for American 
alfalfa, but the home market is better. The alfalfa meal is simply ground 
alfalfa, without any admixture whatever, in a form concentrated, easily 
transported, and keeping indefinitely in a dry climate. There is no loss in 
the grinding, but rather a saving, as in feeding the hay there is a large 
amount of waste. The eastern farmer buys California alfalfa meal and by 
diluting with cotton-seed hulls, black-strap or corn fodder he has the best 
stock feed in the world. It is largely used also for hog- and poultry feed, 
and in limited amounts for horses. 
[i2] 




Siiiynui fii^s fay $[^^0 an acre, and Duroc pigs pay crcn inoi 

money makers. 




Biilh arc bii 



Empire 




]\IPIRE COLONY" it was a year ago, and five years ago a 
stubble field. A colony of the church of the Brethren, com- 
monly known as Dunkords, from Indiana and other states of 
the Middle West, settled here, bringing with them the 
Proverbs of Solomon. They sowed their alfalfa before they built their 
houses and now they are cutting five or six crops a season and stacking it 
up at the rate of six or eight tons to the acre. There are numerous members 
of other religious denominations also and a general spirit of hospitality and 
neighborliness prevails. 

Empire is on the Santa Fe, five miles east of Modesto, with which it is 
connected by the Modesto & Empire Traction line. In 1913 there were 
shipped out 314 cars of grain, hay and fruit, besides express matter, and 651 
cars of freight were handled on the traction line. 

The Old People's Home 

The Brethren church of California planned to estal)lish an ( )1(1 People's 
Home. Good climate, good natural drainage, with no standing water; 
absence of malaria and other similar diseases ; abundance of water for all 
purposes, pure water for domestic use, and convenience of transportation, 
were requisite. After a careful examination of many sites the committee 
decided in favor of Empire, and here the Dunkords will undoubtedly estab- 
lish a record for longevity. 

Alfalfa Avenue 

All along the Traction line from Modesto to Empire there are fields 
of alfalfa, orchards, gardens and pretty bungalows, and what was a short 
time ago a country road is now a suburban avenue, and plans have been 
made to continue the road to Waterford and Hickman and ultimately to 
La Grange. Tree-bordered and lined with i)retty homes set in emerald 
fields of alfalfa, among orchards of peach, almond, aj^ricot. plum and fig, it 
would be hard to find a more beautiful or prosperous locality in Calift)rnia. 



An Early Picture 

11ic San Joaquin X'allcy folder of the Santa Fe, published in 1911, said, 
in describing Empire : 

"Empire Landing, on the Tuolumne River, was known of old for its 
big freights of wheat and barley. Now a finer grade of goods goes by rail. 
Farms have grown up on the grain fields like mushrooms in the night. 
Empire Colony is composed almost entirely of Dunkords, and where they 
settle the earth gets busy. Last year in dry pasture or stunted grain ; this 
year green with alfalfa ! There are about two hundred families altogether, 
and it is noticeable that they build their barns first. A tent does for house, 
or the tank-house under the wind-mill. The following thumb-nail stories 
will illustrate their industry and prosperity : Rev. J. W. Deardorff came from 
North Dakota and was the first to settle here in the spring of 1909. He got 
his forty acres of prairie seeded that summer and last spring cut his first 
alfalfa, a ton and a half to the acre, which sold for $6 per ton in the field. 
The second crop would probably make two tons to the acre and should be 
worth $7 per ton. He has plenty of water and will likely make six cuttings. 
Silas Spyres put fifty-five acres in alfalfa last summer. He had cut his first 
crop and in twenty-eight days the second crop was standing three feet high 
and he was cutting it, making two tons to the acre. S. T. Barkley, experi- 
menting on a patch of seven-eighths of an acre, with a dressing of gypsum, 
cut 6.500 pounds of alfalfa the first crop. Not one man in a thousand in 
this country uses any fertilizer. Alfalfa is the only crop raised here as yet, 
excepting the little gardens, but keep your eyes on Empire." 

An Alfalfa Sermon 
If the farmer-preacher should go back east and tell of his "forty" 
of alfalfa and another eighty leased, from which he is now getting two tons 
to the acre at a cutting and is likely to make five cuttings nearly as good 
during the season, they would have him up before the elders. But he could 
show them. He quotes John 1-46: "Come and see." He is an apostle of 
optimism. When his people complain that hay is low, he answers : "That is 
right ; hay should be low when it is plenty. But meat, and butter, and poul- 
try and eggs, are not low; turn your alfalfa into Initter-fat ; sell cream, and 
hogs, and eggs, and all the time your land is getting richer and producing 
more alfalfa, and you will be selling more cream. Remember the parable 
of the talents." The Reverend Jacob is a good pastor, and a good farmer. 

Two Thousand Flcinish Giants 
Royer & Strom's rabbitry is said tt) be the largest in America. They 
are some rabbits, sure enough. There are, or were at the last count, 2,000 
of them, from new-hatched to does weighing fifteen pounds. Green alfalfa 
from a 3^ -acre field with a ton and a half of grain a month is their feed. 
Breeding stock are sold at $1.50 to $15 each and San Francisco hotels and 

[34] 




^M'l 



Li I H II hay is /oti 



your land is getting richer and producing more alfalfa, and 
dairy products are in good demand. 



restaurants offer a market at 10 to 15 cents a pound, live weight. It is cal- 
culated that the cost, including labor, is close to the former figure. The 
Empire rabbitry ships fancy stock to all the Pacific Coast states and to New 
Mexico and Texas. 

Fifteen Pounds of Butter per Week 
The Merci Ranch, east of Empire, has been long noted for its high- 
class Holsteins. The herd has averaged from February last 6.7 gallons, test- 
ing from 3.5 to 4.2, which is equivalent to a little better than two pounds per 
day. Winnie Cornucopia has a weekly test of 668.9 pounds of milk and 
23.94 pounds of butter per week, and the next best is 22.05 pounds. All 
the milking cows average above 15 pounds a week. The feed is all alfalfa. 
Norman draft horses, Poland-China hogs and poultry are other features 
of the Merci ranch, together with peach, pear and fig orchards. The 160 
acres of alfalfa make five crops a year, averaging over a ton to the acre 
and sometimes a ton and a half. 

Grapes and Almonds 

Not far from the Merci Ranch, on the Waterford road, is the vineyard 
and almond orchard of J. J. McMahon, an old resident of the county. There 
are 190 acres in Zinfandel and other wine grapes, and 120 acres in almonds, 
eight years old, with another orchard recently planted. There are 40 acres 
in pears that produced last year 410 tons, selling at $40 per ton. 

Poultry, and also berries of all kinds, tomatoes, garden beans and sweet 
corn, offer good prospects to the farmer on few acres, and many are engag- 
ing in these kinds of intensive agriculture. The market is an inviting one ; 
conditions are good and there are no indications of a declining demand. 

Claus is a brand new town between Empire and Riverbank. on the 
Santa Fe. It has a fine school and being in the alfalfa country it has numer- 
ous dairies. It will soon be in the class with its neighbors on either side, 
and meanwhile it is about as good a place for an energetic young man to 
settle in. with a share in directing its growing destinies, as any place on the 
map. [35] 




Turlock Irrigation District 

HE Turlock district was the pioneer in completing an irrigation 
system under the Wright Act, putting the water under the 
proprietorship of the land instead of under corporations organized 
for profit. By this system the irrigation water, necessary for the 
production of crops, is made a charge upon the land, the same as roads and 
bridges. The Turlock district is the largest of the Stanislaus County irri- 
gated areas, lapping over into Merced County to the Merced River. It 
includes 176,210 acres, or about half the size of the average Iowa county. 
The area actually irrigated is about 100,000 acres and it is estimated that 
there is about as much land adjoining that will ultimately be taken into the 
district when the irrigation works are enlarged. 

The bonded indebtedness for the construction of the works is but $15.11 
per acre, the lowest of any irrigation district in the West. But this does not 
mean a cheap district. There are 223 miles of canals, and the Davis reser- 
voir, costing $475,000, has a capacity of 50,000 acre-feet. 

Tlic Pioneer Era Passed 
Green fields have replaced barren wastes; jack-rabbits and horned toads 
have given their haunts to the keeping of dairy herds and chickens. Fifteen 
thousand people, mostly Americans and Swedes, have come and schools 
and churches have sprung up in all parts of the district. In 1903, no less 
than 3,403 carloads of produce were sent out and the total value of the 
freight and express shipments was figured at $2,480,700. The Turlock 
district is not for the pioneer. The period of pioneering is past. Telephones 
and rural mail routes run to all parts of the district. Electric power is 
convenient. The purest drinking water is found at fifty feet or less. It is 
the age of good roads and the automobile ; of the small farm and intensive 
farming. The opportunities here have been made by water, the matchless 
California climate and a good soil, a sandy loam of granitic origin. 

Alfalfa the Great Crop 
"Everything grows in the Turlock country." Alfalfa is the great crop, 
and there are 67,680 acres of this "best fodder" in the district. It costs about 
$25 per acre to check the land and seed alfalfa, and it lasts for seven or eight 
years, without re-seeding. Artificial inoculation is never necessary. As it 
is the custom of neighbors to exchange labor at haying the cost of harvest- 
ing is small. Many irrigate after each cutting", while others find the use of 
less water gives better results. Although a thousand cars of alfalfa were 
shipped from this district in 1913 this is a very small portion of the crop, 
the major portion being fed to stock. 

Dairying Is Profitable 
Alfalfa is the backbone of the dairy industry, for it is a rich and inex- 
pensive food. When the Turlock farmers began dairying they were short 

[36] 











' ^ 


H.^ 






Irrigating canal near the foothills, and a lateral in the irrigated country. 



of money, for they were paying for their farms. They picked good grade 
stock and the best sires. They studied breeding. And now the awards at 
the State Fair, the verdict of all experts who have visited this section, and 
the prices foreign buyers pay for dairy stock have convinced them that their 
herds are graded to a high degree of excellence. Horses, and hogs as well, 
are making a name for the breeders. The local creameries and outside 
buyers bid for the butter-fat and make a good market. The average price 
for 1912 and 1913 was 34 cents. Many dairymen have contracts to supply 
sweet cream and milk for the San Francisco market. The average cow 
returns $10 a month, in addition to the income from poultry and hogs that 
consume the skim milk. A little additional Egyptian corn for the poultry 
and hogs, w-ith some pumpkins, citrons or melons also for the latter, and 
the extra profit from the dairy is considerable. Hog and poultry diseases 
are rare. 

Peaches 

Peaches are the most valuable of the orchard crops of the district. In 
1913 the value of the shipments was $411,553, and they will be much larger 
this year. It costs $25 an acre to plant peaches; they begin to bear in four 
years and maturing in eight years, yield seven or eight tons to the acre, 
worth $20 to $35 per ton. 

Figs 

The Smyrna, or "Calimyrna," Adriatic and Mission figs do well. iMg 
culture is so recent that the trees have not yet shown their production at 
maturity, but they are now yielding two tons to the acre, worth $80 or more 
per ton. Olives, apricots and almonds are among the other orchard products 
that pay well. 

The Vineyard 

Grapes paid the Turlock district $232,000 in 1913, the larger portion 
being in wine grapes. It costs about $15 an acre to plant a vineyard and at 
maturity, or in seven years, they yield seven or eight tons to the acre. The 
1913 price was $12 to $15 a ton. Ten-year contracts can be made at $10 
per ton, or more in the case of vineyards of established reputation. Shipping 

[37] 





<5J '5» 



t I S MS 




These famous Dutch-Belted cows, like the Guernseys on the preceding page, 

are a woman's pets. 

grapes yield 350 to 400 crates to the acre and bring 75 cents to a dollar 
a crate. 

S^vcct Potatoes and Melons 

Seventy-five per cent of the California sweet potato crop is grown in 
the Turlock-Merced section. The shipments last year were 283 cars. The 
yield is from 125 to 225 crates of 100 pounds per acre and bring 80 cents to 
$1.25 per crate. 

Turlock is the melon center of the West. In 1913, 1,092 carloads of 
watermelons and cantaloupes were shipped from this district. A fair yield 
of watermelons is 15 to 20 tons, worth, on the average for the past three 
years, $8 per ton. Large melons bring $12 and $14. Cantaloupes yield from 
150 to 300 crates, and sometimes as high as 500 crates to the acre. They 
were worth, average for the season, 65 cents per crate in 1912, and 85 cents 
in 1913. This year's prices range a little above those of last year. The 
Cassaba is now raised extensively and the Persian and Turkish melons 
have recently been introduced and are very successful. 

Intensified Farming 
Turlock is the home of intensified farming, and of diversified agriculture. 
All crops are grown with success. Cereals ; wheat, barley, rye. oats ; many 
kinds of garden truck, including beans, cucutubers, sciuash, tomatoes, cab- 
bage, cauliflower, celery, peppers, cucumbers, etc. ; berries, strawberries, 
loganberries, blackberries; and all kinds of stock feed. 



Turlock 

URLOCK. a city of 3.000, is on the main line of the Southern 
Pacific Railroad. It is the largest city and the commercial center 
for the Turlock Irrigation District. Having been built recently, 
it reflects the latest ideas in city building, having a municipal water 
and sewer system, more miles of paved streets than any city of its age and 
size in the United States, an exceptional street lighting system, and many 

[391 





beautiful homes. Here is located a cannery, creamery, gas plant, two banks, 
two newspapers, a number of splendid churches, two grammar schools, a 
splendid high school, and many stores whose stocks rival those of the cities. 

A Week's Shipiiieiits 
Shipments from Turlock for the week ending July 25. 1914, averaged 
thirty-eight cars per day. The value of one day's shipments, which may 
be taken as an average, was as follows : 

Watermelons, 18 cars at $120 $ 2,160 

Cantaloupes, 17 cars at $350 5,950 

Peaches, 4 cars at $260 1 ,040 

Cream 1 ,568 

Butter 459 

Total $11,177 

Ceres 

ERES discloses its origin, or at least its history, in its name. It 
was a settlement in a rich grain farming country, and its string of 
big grain and hay warehouses on the Southern Pacific track are 
filled to the roof this harvest season of 1914. Ceres is now a great 
garden of peach orchards, with almond, apricot, fig, plum and other fruit, 
with vineyards of forty, sixty and over a hundred acres. Its orchards supply 
the canneries of Turlock, Modesto and others at greater distances and it 
will soon have one of its own. as well as a fruit packing house. These 
industries grow in a night in the San Joaquin Valley. Ceres has a fine 
grammar school and is building a new high school of the most approved 
architecture. The post office has lately been advanced to third class, and a 
lively newspaper looks after the local interests. The largest creamery in 
the district is turning out about a ton and a half of fancy butter daily for 
the Los Angeles market and distributing about $15,000 every fortnight 
among the 180 or more dairymen of the district. 

llie Whit more Raiieh 
A description of the Whitmore "ranch" will apply to the entire neigh- 
borhood, for it represents the old and the new agriculture, and the dairy 
industry and the fruit industry as well. ( )f the 1.000 acres, 270 are in alfalfa, 
and about 200 in grain annually. An alfalfa region is a rich grain country 
as well, for the plowing up and re-seeding, which is done about every six 
or eight years, gives heavy cro])s of barley and oats and silage corn. The 
dairy herd consists of about fifty high-grade Holsteins. headed by a couple 
of thoroughbred bulls. — and no others are kei)t now in this country. — pro- 
ducing a little better than eight-tenths of a pound of butter-fat daily. Some 

[41] 



of the cows are doing better than two pounds daily, which puts them in the 
600-pound class. But they average $8 per month, for the milking period, 
besides the calf, which is worth from $8 to $25, the full-bloods bringing the 
latter price. Hogs are an important adjunct of the dairy, consuming the 
skim-milk and pasturing on the alfalfa. The hog sales amount to about $275 
annually. The cow feed is straight alfalfa, with silage in the winter and 
spring. There are two silos of 175 tons capacity each, and 55 acres are in 
fodder corn, irrigated and cultivated, to fill the silos. 

Peaches, Apricots and Grapes 
The orchard of 250 acres is devoted mainly to cling peaches for canning, 
and these bring from $25 to $28 per ton at the cannery. The crop runs from 
five to ten tons per acre. Apricots, of which there are ten acres, bring $30 
per ton. Apricots may be figured here at seven or eight tons to the acre, 
with a full crop three years out of five. "Cots," and peaches also, have three 
markets, the cannery, the fresh-fruit market, and dried. The vineyard, of 
140 acres, is divided among Malagas, Thompson Seedless, Tokays and Em- 
perors, and an experimental planting. 

Many Orchards 

All around Ceres are orchards, mostly peach, and some apricot and fig, 
and almond as well. W. H. Harstine, who came from Kansas some years 
ago, has a 20-acre place, with 14 acres in peaches, six years old. The orchard 
began to bear at three years, producing $500, and the next year $800. This 
year the indications are for six or seven tons to the acre. They will bring 
from $25 to $30 a ton at the cannery. The orchard is irrigated twice in the 
season, usually, water enough being let on to flood the checks. The whole 
orchard can be irrigated in five or six hours, and the soil, being a deep, sandy 
loam, takes the water quickly. 

E. G. Stone, from Rochester, N. Y., has a fine old orchard, drying peach. 
By good care and cultivation this orchard is made to produce seven and eight 
tons to the acre, and has a record of ten tons. Other orchards in the neigh- 
borhood are fully as good. These orchard men, it may be remarked, employ 
none but white labor as a rule, and there is no settlement of non-whites in 
the neighboorhood, or in fact of any non-English, speaking people. 

A Big Wine Vineyard 
The vineyard of A. B. Shoemake, though small compared with the big 
thousand-acre vineyards of the wineries, is considered large in the irrigated 
districts of Stanislaus County. It includes 560 acres altogether, with 320 
acres near Ceres. The varieties are principally Zinfandel, Feherzagoes and 
Thompson Seedless, the latter being available either for the fresh grape 
shipping, for raisins or for wine. The vineyards are five years old and the 
indicated yield is about seven tons to the acre, which will be increased to 
eight and ten tons as the vines grow older. 

[42] 



Figs arc in a class l)y themselves, and the Ceres district is one <if the ])cA 
fig- regions of the State. Ing's are slower in coming into l)i'aring than most 
fruit, but are long- lived, steady bearers, have few insect or other enemies and 
cost less for care and cultivation than other fruit. One of the pioneer fig 
raisers in the Smyrna Park section is Cyrus Case, originally from the State 
of Maine. There are ten acres of Smyrna, or 'Xalimyrna" figs, producing 
about a ton and a half to the acre, measured in dry figs, and increasing- every 
year. Half the crop is sold fresh, packed in one-layer boxes (8 pounds), 
which bring- 75 cents to a dollar in the Eastern markets, which is equivalent 
to 18 to 25 cents a pound for the dried fruit. The dried figs, which are 
picked up as they fall from the tree, are contracted for at $100 a ton, a g-ood 
price, considering- the little labor in handling-. The orchard is usually irri- 
gated once and is then cultivated. The returns are about $150 or $160 per 
acre and are increasing- with the growth of the trees and the improvements 
in marketing. 

Poultry and bees are special industries of the Ceres neighborhood, three 
or four carloads of honey being shipped annually. H. O. Brown, of the 
Stanislaus Poultry Association, and W. A. Gilstrap, secretary of the county 
Bee Keepers' Association, can give interesting particulars. 



Keyes 

Keyes lies in the center of the Turlock Irrigation District, midway 
between Turlock and Modesto. The acjjoining country is remarkably pro- 
ductive in beans, watermelons, cantaloupes, sweet potatoes, alfalfa, grapes 
and fruit, especially peaches. This season there will be between 700 and 
1,000 carloads of sweets, melons and cantaloupes shipped from Keyes. The 
creamery, owned and operated by local people, was opened on the first of 
July, 1913, with an output of 450 pounds of butter, and on the same date, 
1914, the output was 2,750 pounds. The butter is shipped to Los Angeles 
where it ranks at the top of the fancy trade. 

J. A. Goodall is one of the leading Jersey breeders, coming from Illinois 
two years ago and starting in dairying. He has confined his herd to regis- 
tered Jerseys and now has some of the finest stock on the Coast, with a 
number of animals from the famous Hood Farm, of Massachusetts. As an 
example of success in beans, S. C. Peck put in fifty acres last year, clearing 
$2,000. Grown in rotation with other crops, beans represent only half the 
season's product. 

The school shows evidence of the rapid growth of the community in 
the temporary or "out-door" school building put up last year adjoining the 
old school house, with another one building. The district now employs six 
teachers, where two years ago there was but one teacher with twelve pupils. 

[43] 




Denair^ 

HE traveler from the south on the Santa Ve, after passing- through 
many tedious miles of dry grain country, spies, as the train crosses 
the Merced River, wide expanses of restful g-reen. He sits up 
and takes notice. In the corrals he sees small herds of Jersey or 
Holstein cows, and he also sees orchards and vineyards, which, if in mid- 
summer, as the writer is telling this story, arc breaking- down with their 
loads of fruit. The traveler in(|uires what place they arc coming to. 
"Denair," is the reply. 

A Country of Good People and Small Farfns 
Like its neighbor, Hughson, a few miles north, and in fact in common 
with all the rest of the district, Denair is a country of small farms and good 
homes. And like all the rest it is "dry,'' with an industrious, white, church- 
going- community. There are three churches : Friends, Christian and Mis- 
sion. For a couple of years when the town was new, the different congrega- 
tions worshipped under one roof in Christian harmony, and this harmony, 
which exists today, indicates that it is a community of brotherly love. Denair 
has good schools, including a high school which is maintained in the bank 
building; a bank, a creamery, a newspaper and a live chamber of commerce. 
Farms are small, — iifteen or twenty acres, while many of five and ten 
acres are making a good living for their owners. Dairying, poultry and 
fruit are the leading industries. Hogs as an adjunct of the dairy, are very 
profitable and Denair has the record of being the leading hog-shipping point 
of the county. There are some 75 shippers of cream and milk from Denair, 
shipping about 200 gallons of cream and 300 gallons of milk daily. 

The Soil — Especially Adapted to Alfalfa 
The soils of the Denair-Hughson-Empire country (or in other words, 
the strip bordering on the Santa Fe railroad, lying between the Turlock- 
Modesto lands along the Southern Pacific and the land at the base of the 
Sierra foothills) is a little heavier, or more loamy than that on the west and 
a little better adapted to alfalfa. And it is no less suitable for fruit and 
vegetables. But, as the doctors say, alfalfa is "indicated." 

What Fifty Cozi's Can Do 
An experienced dairyman says: "Fifty cows on fifty acres of alfalfa 
should average 270 pounds of l)utter-fat each in a year, making 13.500 
pounds. These are no fancy figures, for individual cows niight double this 
production. At 32^ cents, the average price for butter- fat in San Francisco 
for the past five years, this would make $4,387.50 for the herd. Deduct feed 
at $45 per year per head, and two men at $40 per month and board, $1,560; 
total. $3,810, leaves a credit of $577. without allowing anything fur the 
calves, hogs and puultr\-, With only one man. which is nearer the rule, there 

[45] 



would be $780 added to the credit side. There is too much variation in the 
receipts for calves, hogs and other by-jjroducts but these, after all, represent 
in the best dairies the real profits of the dairy." The hog shipments should 
bring in about $1,000 a year. 

Jerseys of High Degree 
Here is a man from Illinois, Air. J. N. Lester, with herds of registered 
Jerseys headed by such famous sires as Gertie's Son and Marquis Golden 
Lad — names that will be recognized by the initiated. He says : "My herd 
at Denair averages me better than a pound of butter-fat a day. I have had 
experience with dairying near Chicago, Illinois, where I operated a dairy 
and sold sweet cream at 36 to 54 cents for butter-fat. I had silos and fed 
a complete ration, but it was not as profitable as my exclusive alfalfa ration 
in the San Joaquin Valley. If you tell the dairymen of Indiana and Illinois 
the facts in regard to the results we get from an exclusive alfalfa ration in 
this region, they may regard it as a 'California story,' but it is all right. 
* * * You will be doing these eastern farmers a favor if you get them out 
here, and I will back you up with the facts." Mr. Lester also has a dairy 
at Riverbank, and one in Kings County. 

Sez'eii Coin's; Eight Hundred Dollars 

Mr. J. Lankard, who came from Missouri by way of Los Angeles 
(which is the way most Missourians are shown) claims a better record, 
which is often done with a smaller number of cows. He has fifteen head of 
Jerseys, including" young stock, and eight milking cows brought him $800 
last year. He has twenty acres of land and he makes it all count. 

Mrs. W. M. Leland makes a specialty of Guernseys, one of the few 
herds of this breed in the county. They are heavier than the Jerseys, and 
have more the characteristics of the Holsteins, with which the herd is mixed, 
numbering altogether about sixty head. The cows are pastured on alfalfa, 
though the greater part of the 120 acres is cut for hay. 

A Little Bit of hife)isiz'e Fanning 
N. A. Stimson hails from Iowa, but his name gives him away for a 
New Yorker. He came here only four years ago and bought seventeen 
acres of grain stubble. He has ten acres of alfalfa, two acres of straw- 
berries and an acre and a half of peach orchard, with l)lackberries between 
the rows. He raises pumpkins among the blackberries, so that there is not 
much land lying idle. Mrs. Stimson takes care of the poultry and is raising 
a couple of Jersey calves. Calculating roughly, the strawberries bring in 
between $400 and $500, the blackberries $300, and the orchard about $150. 
The poultry are good for $100 more. 

./ Good Orehard Report 
The .Shafer orchards, near Denair, have 50 acres in peaches, 30 in 
apricots, 14 in jjlums, 6 iu cherries, and 40 acres in Malaga grapes, with 

[46] 





The schools of Stanislaus county are not excelled anyzvlicrc. These tzvo arc at 
Patterson and Newman. 

five acres in alfalfa and ten or twelve acres in oats and niilo for the stock. 
This was the first year for the apricots (Tiltons), and they yielded 
45 tons, at $30 a ton. The cherries bear well and bring 7 and 8 cents a 
pound. The Kelsey plums are heavy and sure bearers, making eight and 
ten tons to the acre. The vineyard will make five tons per acre this year 
and the crop is already engaged at $20 per ton. f. o. b. The vines are young 
and should produce eight or ten tons per acre next year. The orchards are 
surrounded by a border of red gum (eucalyptus), five years old and forty 
or fifty feet high, some of the trees being a foot in diameter. Home labor 
entirely is employed in the orchard and vineyard and the best of conditions 
prevail. A system of thorough cultivation is followed, with two irrigations 
per year. (See illustration of the apricot side of this orchard.) 

Poultry (Did Gardens 
There is a very well founded prejudice against associating fowls with 
gardens. Here, however, by the liberal use of wire netting, people manage 
to have beautiful and productive gardens and quiet, well-behaved fowls. 
P. T. Nye, who lives comfortably if not luxuriously in his tank-house, shows 
a pretty garden well stocked with roses and a yard of White Leghorns. His 
poultry account for last year showed 3,914 dozen eggs from ZSS hens ; sales, 
3,788 dozen, $926.60. Cost of feeding, $1.26 per hen, |)rofit i^rr hen. on 
sales, $1.37, or including home use, $1.50. 



Hughson 

(3^r| <^ UGHSON is on the Santa Fe, seven miles north of Denair and 
-^^ 113 miles from San Francisco. It is the northeastern section 
I of the Turlock Irrigation District and has a jiopulation of about 
600, and every one counts. Six years from the grain stubble. 
1 lughson has a bank, a hotel, a newspaper, a milk-condensary, four churches, 
grammar and high school, and a goodly number of well-stocked business 

[47] 



houses and shops. Regarding the bank, it may be said that it was started 
in the new-hatched town three years ago by a couple of Kansas hustlers, 
and now has deposits of close to $100,000. which is a good indication of the 
productiveness of the land. 

A Cream Center 

Hughson grew out of the subdividing of the old Hughson ranch of 
2,160 acres in 1908. In a short time a hundred families, mostly from the 
Middle West, had occupied the country with farms averaging twenty-five 
acres or less. On the ten thousand acres tributary to Hughson it is estimated 
that there are fully 3,000 dairy cows, of which about 1,200 are supplying" 
the milk condensary, established by local enterprise and capital, which ships 
both condensed milk and sweet cream to San Francisco. Much cream is 
also collected by the various creameries that are competing for the custom 
of the dairies. 

A Little Dairy Record 

Nine small dairies in the neighborhood, running two to twelve cows and 
totaling 66, show an average of $10.64 during the milking period. These 
were mostly grade cows, with no extra care or feed, and costing their owners 
nothing but the labor of cutting half a ton of alfalfa for each cow per month, 
and the milking and care. Indeed, the writer was shown one dairy, not a 
model one by any means, which managed to get along with only land enough 
for a corral. The owner had got together half a dozen cows and by buying 
refuse hay succeeded in coaxing his cows to provide him with a living, 
by turning hay worth $1.50 into butter worth $8 or $9. Which shows that 
neither broad acres nor towering silos are absolutely necessary in the dairy 
game. 

Some Sample Dairies 

Let us look at some of these dairies. Here is F. D. Keeney, for example. 
He keeps thirty head of stock on twenty acres. It was the 5th of May when 
the writer visited his place and his little patch of Peruvian alfalfa had 
already been cut twice, yielding a ton and a half to the cutting. He milks 
eight Jersey cows and they give him ten pounds of butter-fat a day. 

George F. Kendall came from Wash'ington, where he had been handling 
good money in a bank for several years. But it was all other people's money, 
and he wanted to handle some of his own. So he came here two years ago 
and got a little place on the oat stubble, building a barn and sowing some 
alfalfa. He got a small Jersey herd and is now milking twelve, including" 
heifers and strippers, which average a little over a pound a day. He has 
done all his own work until this year, to the benefit of his health. He has 
been living, Swiss fashion (which is very much the fashion in Stanislaus), 
in one side of his barn, but will soon have a neat little bungalow. 

[48] 




I'ii^s III clui'cr. with /^caches on the side, is a flcascuit :^aiiu' to f^l^y i^r the man 
7ch() has a shop in toZi.'ii. 

All Alfalfa Ledger Account 
The local secretary presents the followino- ledi^er account of nine acres 
of alfalfa on the farm of L. P. Payne, in 1913: 

Credit, 59^^ tons of alfalfa, sold at $9 per ton $535.50 

Debit, Irrigation, state and county taxes $27.00 

Labor, cutting and stacking- 90.00 

discing and irrigating 25.00 142.00 



Net receipts $393.50 

Mr. Payne paid $250 an acre for this huul in l'U2 and he is now- 
getting- a net income amounting" to 8 per cent on a value of $546 per acre, 
and his total taxes, please notice, amount to $3 per acre. 

A Profitable Dairy 
And this: W. D. Longley has thirteen cows that have averag-ed 16 
pounds of butter-fat per day for six months. Lowest price. 30 cents ; highest. 
43 cents ; average, 38 cents, at the creamery. Feed, alfalfa only, not quite 
half a ton a month. This gives an average of $14.03 per nionth per cow. 
and a return of $28.06 per ton for the alfalfa, not comUing labor. This 
would be greatly increased by crediting the pigs and poultry. I'igs are 
bought at eight weeks old for $2.50 to $3.00; fed waste alfalfa and skim 
milk for five weeks and sold at about 125 pounds weight at 8 cents. In 
other words. 8-cent ])ork is i)r()(luced at a cost of 4 cents or less. The skim 
milk is also fed to growing calves and chickens. 

/ ) i-i 'crsified Fa ruling 
There is so much orchard in and about liugh>on that if one had not 
seen the dairies he would call it distinctly a fruit country. And all this 
country, whichever way you go. is so checkered with orchards and vineyards, 
with alfalfa checks and melon patches, gardens and bean fields; dairies and 
jioultry farms, grain and ])asture, that you cannot say whether it is one or 
the other, and the onlv name for it is diversified farming — and intensive 

[49] 



agriculture. These farmers do not put all their eggs in one basket. They 
do not "make a killing" on one special crop one year and then go broke 
the next. It keeps them hopping to keep up with the procession and they 
have no time for trips to Europe (some of them go, though, all the same), 
or even to go fishing, but they have some produce to sell every week in the 
year. 

Grain and Horses 
Milton Gross came here a few years ago from Pennsylvania and bought 
a small place near Hughson. He set out a little vineyard and a mixed 
orchard. Oat hay looked like a good thing to him and he put in ten acres. 
He cut thirty tons and sold it at $18 and $18.50, making $547.50. He fol- 
lowed the oats with white beans, harvesting 106 sacks of 90 pounds, which 
sold for $3.90 a hundred, making $372 more to add to the credit, and a total 
of $919.50 from the ten acres. He is now getting an income from his fruit 
and has also put in some alfalfa, which nobody can do without. 

Olives a Sure Crop 
"What's the matter with olives?" asked the writer. There is nothing 
the matter with olives ; not even scale. The experienced olive man turns up 
the underside of the leaves in an olive grove to look for scale, though in 
most cases he need not take that trouble. A glance suffices here, for the 
rich green, healthy foliage shows that there is no insect pest here. The olive, 
like the fig, is a long-lived tree, a constant bearer, and will stand a great 
deal of ill-treatment, which it usually gets. Like the fig it requires plenty of 
sun and air and is usually planted in borders. The smaller varieties are sold 
for oil, at about $40 a ton, and the larger kinds go to the pickle factories at 
prices ranging from $80 to near $200 a ton, according to quality and ripe- 
ness, the demand now being for ripe olives. There is a risk, however, in 
holding the fruit too long, as a frost may catch the olive man if he don't 
watch out, and then his crop goes to the oil press. 

The Hickman Countr)^ 

^ ICKALA-N lies near the south bank of the Tuolumne River, just 
south of Waterford, and all that has been said above of the 
bright prospects of the latter apply also to Hickman. But it 
may be said further that TTickman has advanced in the march of 
progress and is already tasting some of the rewards that belong to an up-to- 
date and wide-awake community. One has but to look at the wide and 
brimming canal, the main artery of the Turlock Irrigation District, and the 
orchards and alfalfa fields which border it almost from the outlet of the 
reservoir down to the valley floor, and at the fine new grammar school which 
testifies to the high intelligence of the peo])le, to know that Hickman is the 
center of a very productive agricultural district and a growing population 
of u])-to-date people. 

150J 






One of the f-iC(i liir;4(' 



'j'iinuiiar schools at Jiirhicl: and on alnunid orcluird near 
Oakdalc. 



Ricli Sandy Loam- 
Surrounding the town of HickuTan are some twenty thousand acres of 
sandy loam. Ahnost a tenth part of the region is rich hottom land along 
the Tuolumne River. Toward the west are found some of the best sections 
of the Turlock district, and some four miles eastward begin the rolling hills 
that are producing large crops of cereals to swell the warehouses of Hickman 
and provide grist for the mill. In variety and quality of soil, for general 
agriculture, for alfalfa, for deciduous or citrus fruit, conditions in the Hick- 
man district are not surpassed anywhere in the State. While not all the 
soils in this section are first class, and some soils are better for some crops 
than for others, it will all, when properly prepared and irrigated, produce 
good crops of alfalfa, grain, etc. The soils are loams of varying consistency, 
from the dark brown, heavy Oakdale sandy loam to the lighter Fresno sandy 
loam, entirely free from alkali and usually of good depth. 

The Fertile River Silt 
Along the bottoms of the Tuolumne are deposits of silt soil with a depth 
of twelve to fifteen feet to water, wdiich are unsurpassed in any country for 
fertility. Crops are grown on these bottoms without irrigation. Corn 
(maize) grows sixteen feet high and produces fifty to seventy bushels to 
the acre. Kafir corn, or "Egyptian," beans, early potatoes, tomatoes and 
vegetables of all kinds are also very prolific. The Bartlett pear finds here a 
congenial home and not only produces heavily but has a color and ilavor 
not found in the valley. Clierries, ai)ples and ])lunis also do well. 

Roads and Transportation 
The roads are hard and smooth and are maintained at a >niall expense. 
From all the east side, where the heaviest crops of grain are produced and 
where the orchards of the future will be located, it is an easy down-grade 
to the railroad. Besides the Southern Pacific, the Modesto & Empire has 
surveyed an extension from Empire, on the Santa Fe, eastward to Water- 
ford, and it is planned to carry the line on to La Grange. This will not only 

[51] 



connect W'aterford and llickman with the county seat, Init will _ij;ive compet- 
ing service on two trunk-line railways. 

TJic llickiiiaii Ranch 
Hickman is the home, or business district of the famous 1 lickman ranch 
of eleven thousand acres, owned and operated by the Louis M. Hickman 
corporation. While ])rimarily a scientifically operated grain ranch, the lands 
have demonstrated that olives, figs, oranges, grapes and all kinds of fruit 
grown in California may be successfully produced. But, as explained by 
Prof. Wickson, circumstances and market demands called for other crops 
and they have not got around to commercial fruit growing. The ranch has 
raised large crops of grain and hay, and never better than the present year, 
and fine stock as well. The owners, however, recognize the new era of small 
farms and accept the change in the modern spirit. In a short time the ranch 
will be subdivided and offered to newcomers at prevailing rates. 

Electric Pozvcr 
In these days, the man wdio is located at a distance from a power line 
is as much isolated as if he were away from the railroad. The main pole 
line of the Yosemite Pow'cr Company, taking its power from the Tuolumne 
River, traverses the Hickman district, offering ample power for running 
machinery, pumping plants and all farm and dairy work, as well as lighting. 

Artesian JJ\^Ils 
As though the irrigation ditch were not sufficient, they have developed 
several artesian wells in the Hickman neighborhood, which will have the 
advantage of a never-failing supply of the clearest and purest of water. 

The Oakdale District 

TIE Oakdale district is the newest of the Stanislaus County irriga- 
tion communities, having first tasted the blessings of water in 
1913. It includes 70,000 acres on the northeastern side of the 
county, lying under the Sierra foothills. The soils are for the 
most part of a heavier texture than those of the AIodesto-Turlock districts. 
There is more clay-loam and greater areas of sedimentary or alluvial loams. 
Having an elevation of about 200 feet on the upper side and with bluffs 
fifty or sixty feet above the Stanislaus River, drainage is amply provided 
for. The country shows a great variety ; wide stretches of level or slightly 
rolling ui)land, and broad benches of river-bottom, especially adapted for 
truck gardens, corn, potatoes, cherries, almonds and deciduous fruit. 

. /// Irrii^ation Partnership 
The Oakdale Irrigation district was organized under the Wright-Bridge- 
ford act, with some inii)roycment on its predecessors. A ])artnership was 

[52] 





TIic apricot side of a bi^ orchard near Deiiair. 

Hucalypfiis. 



It IS bordered i^'itli olii'cs and 



entered into with the South San Joaciuin (Hstriet on the north side of the 
river for the construction of the dam above Knight's Ferry, on the Stanis- 
.laus, and the Oakdale district built its tunnel and canals, irrigating 30,000 
acres on the north side of the river and 40,000 acres on the south side. Like 
the ]\Iodesto district, the ( )akdale taxation system relieves imijrovements 
from the burden of providing for the bonds and ui)-keei). 

A'alues of land have increased greatly with the introduction of the irri- 
gation system, and will continue to increase as settlement and improvement 
continues. A'isitors from other parts of the State comment on the low 
prices of land here as compared with production and with some of the older 
settled regions. Scattered through the district, and particularly in the north 
and east, are some of _the most attractive colony sites to be found in 
California. 

In the Oakdale district are the towns of Oakdale. Riverbank. Thalheim, 
and Knight's Ferry, the latter at one time the county-seat. ( )range Blossom 
and Langworth are old settlements near Oakdale. .\s the name signifies, 
the oak is distinctive of the district, and though many have been cut away, 
these sturdy, dark-foliaged live oaks forni a most pleasing feature of the 
landscape, besides being of great value on the home-sites. 

Cattle on a Thousand Uills 
There is more than a poetic simile in the song of the shepherds of Pales- 
tine as applied to the foothills of the Sierras. Rich in natural gras.ses. the 
wild oats and the filleree : with the side valleys green long into the summer ; 
this country maintains large herds of cattle and numerous tlocks of sheep. 
This is a part of the old stock indu.stry of the country that will not die out as 
long as the hills remain and San Francisco offers a market. The Faulsell 
district, adjoining, is an ideal region for the stock feeder. Steers at three 
years old, fed entirely on natural pa.sture. will average 1,200 pounds and 
bring the highest market price in the San FVancisco market. Those who 
believe that there is still money in the live-stock business do not go astray 
in the Stanislaus County foothills. 

[53] 



The Oakdale country has been long known for its orchards and vine- 
yards, and is now becoming famous for its dairies and poultry. We shall 
speak of the district as a whole, without attempting to segregate, any more 
than is necessary, the various communities and their productions. 

IIoiv the Getiocsc Discovered America 
It was over fifty years ago that Paul Rrichctto came from a tiny Italian 
valley near Genoa with a party of his couutrvDicn who settled at Stockton. 
The foothill valleys of Calaveras and Tuolumne counties are sprinkled with 
Piedmontese names. 'J^hey took naturally to AljMnc farming and it is said 
that they made more from their gardens than the miners did from their 
placers. About 1880 Ih'ichetto came to Langworth (C:)akdalc had not yet 
sprouted), and bought three hundred acres on the river bottoms. He planted 
cherries, olives, vines, Italian chestnuts, and many other things, and kept 
tight on the job. Likewise did his friend and compatriot, Casalegno. And 
they prospered. Brichetto now owns about two thousand acres and has built 
himself a Piedmontese palace in front of his old domicile. And Casalegno 
has taken his family to Europe and will be welcomed at the old homestead 
as an American prince. Moral : Great Oaks from little Oakdale grow. 

A Variety Orchard 

A. V. Stuart was a pioneer from ]\Iaine and planted the first almond 
orchard in the Langworth district, as it was then called. His daughter, Mrs. 
E. V. Coleman, and her two sturdy sons conduct a fruit ranch of about 100 
acres on the benches of the Stanislaus. There are 22 acres of almonds, 6 
acres of olives, 8 of cots, 36 acres of peaches and two of prunes. The prunes 
make 8 to 10 tons to the acre, the cots 10 to 15 tons, and the peaches 10 to 
16 tons to the acre. The trees are large, the soil deep and loose, and the 
surface well cultivated. Their estimate on almonds is an average of 1^ 
tons, at 12 cents, or $240 per ton, making $6,500 for the orchard, with an 
expense of about $500. 

Oliwes and Nuts 

Near the old Langworth school house lives C. C. Turner, who is known 
for his success with olives. He says: ''Olives are my best paying fruit. I 
have two acres of three-year trees which will make a crop this fall, though 
the olive is said to be a slow-bearing tree. I have ])icked $v3.50 worth from 
a five-year-old tree. Olives sold last fall to the pickle factories for $150 to 
$250 per ton. I pickle my own olives and it jjays l)etter than to sell the fruit. 
I buy more than I raise. My cherries at eight years yielded $20 from a 
single tree, and my peach orchard at three years netted me $110 per acre, 
and French prunes as well or better. I ha\c 15 acres of almonds that are 
producing heavilv this year, for small trees. 1 have a few two-year walnuts, 
on black stock, standing twenty feet high in the alfalfa. A neighbor has 
some Persian walnuts that yielded $20 per tree at eight years old, and ])ecans 
that yielded %?^2 to the tree. There is a big future for walnuts and pecans 

[55j 



here."" \\illiani AlcC'reerv has an acre of olives IweiUv years old. Me does 
his own ])icklin-- and last year sold over $5CX) worth of i)ickles and oil olives. 
He has an almond orchard also, which jironiises a heavv crop this year. 

. lliiioiuis and Alfalfa 
Whether ( )akdale is more famons for almonds or cherries, or alfalfa 
or roses, it is hard to say. Anyway, they have a llonrishinL;- .Mmond Grow- 
ers" As.sociation with ahout twenty memhers, and Secretary Wrans^ham, of 
the California Almond Exchange, after insi)ectin^ the orchards last .spring, 
said that he had seen no finer almond district in California. One example 
will sufifice. Niels Linid has 100 acres in almonds, eight to ten years old. 
In 1910 they yielded 4'_> tons; in 1911, 10 tons; 1912. 14 tons; 1913 (the 
dry year). 5 tons. This year the cro]i will he large. Last vear the price 
went to $400 a ton. hut the average price is nearer $2.^0. A fair crop for a 
mature orchard is three-quarters of a ton to a ton ])er acre. Mr. Lund also 
has 65 acres of alfalfa on the river bottoms and cuts 8 to 10 tons to the acre 
in five cuttings, besides pasturing in the winter. 

Stra-iAwvyics 
Strawberries are the special pride of the Riverbank small ranches. They 
have strawberries at Christmas, New A'ear's. Decoration Day and Fourth 
of July. They show you a little ])lace where a man came in last winter, built 
a little bungalow or cabin and planted a patch of strawberries. In April 
he was picking berries and thev do not give him time to put his house to 
rights. Robert Frick is one of the newcomers with a strawberry-mark. 
From a patch 40x65 feet (or 1/16 acre) he sold $60 worth by the middle 
of May and the plants were setting for a second crop. 

Miiltiiiii ill Parvo 
Right in the town of ( )ak(lale, within a ball throw, almost, of the 
women's club house and park, is the little ranch of Samuel Turpin. a Penn- 
sylvania veteran. This Liliputian farm is 87/100 of an acre, including build- 
ings. It has a berry j^atch from which over $300 worth has been sold in a 
season, an orange grove that netted $50 and is improving, a lemon tree that 
bears a thousand lemons, worth $10, and a miscellaneous collection of de- 
ciduous fruit, apples, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries, that are credited 
with $80; three fig trees, $12; 11 olive trees (the product pickled). $116, 
and two Persian walnuts, $25 ; total, $593. It should be explained that the 
crops were peddled in town and everything was made to count. When .Mr. 
Turpin was in good health he kei)t a cow and. some jxndtry. It is no wonder 
that he said the place was too big, and should be divided (like Gaul), into 
three parts. 'Tt is too big for one man to look after," he said. 

]]luit Tliallicim Fanners Arc Doing 
Farmer Deichelbohrer plowed ten acres in the spring of 1912, sowed 
barley, at a cost of $3.50 per acre for ])lowing, harrowing and seeding, and 

15/-J 



cut one and a half tons of grain hay per acre, worth $18 per ton. He plowed 
in the fall ($2.00 per acre), using no seed, and in 1913 cut a ton and a half 
of volunteer grain hay per acre. He then plowed and seeded with Egyptian 
corn, at a cost of $2.50 per acre, and threshed 15 sacks of corn per acre, 
selling at $2.50 per sack. 

W. Aker has two acres of Phillips Cling peaches that are showing what 
fruit of this kind will do here. They produced last year, at four years old, 
four tons per acre, selling at $25 per ton, and this year the prospects are 
considerably better. Strawberries between the trees yielded $150 per acre. 
A row of Himalaya berries, about 20 rods long, growing along the fence, 
which is the general fashion here, brought $35 for the season's crop, besides 
supplying the family. 

Jerseys of HigJi Degree 

Daniel Wieland is the fortunate owner of Golden Marquis Girlie, a 
Jersey of high degree with a record of 16 pounds 10 oimces of butter-fat in 
seven days, and 14,000 pounds of milk testing 5.35, in 1913; equivalent to 
759 pounds of butter-fat. Selling the whole milk to the creamery she 
brought in $300 in a year. Mr. Wieland has been breeding Plymouth Rock 
fowls for twenty-five years and has won twelve silver cups. Several of his 
hens have a 250-egg record. 

Near Riverbank is the Lester herd of registered Jerseys numbering 55 
cows, producing, including heifers and strippers. 45 pounds of butter-fat 
per day last April, and mature cows averaging a pound and a quarter 
per day. i 

An Ideal Poultry Country 

The Oakdale district, from Riverbank to Thalheim on the north and 
Knight's Ferry on the east, is an ideal poultry country. Levi French came 
from North Dakota and after looking over the State for a location he settled 
at Oakdale and established a poultry yard in the oak scrub. He carries about 
2.500 White Leghorns, buys his grain from the farmers and feeds chopped 
alfalfa. His hens have laid an average of 130 for the past four years, and 
the gross return per hen. on the egg account alone, is figured at $2.71. with 
a cost of $1.34. Chicks bring $10 a hundred, brt)ilers 25 cents, and fowls 
from $6 to $7.50 per dozen. Birds for breeding make an additional item. 
iVs to cost of housing, it is estimated at 20 cents per bird here, against $1 
in the East. 

Foul try De-iiioiisfratioii 

Demonstrating in ])uultrv is a specialty of Riverbank. One need not 
be surprised if they ])ut a poultry course in the Riverbank school. At any 
rate, they a\m to teach newcomers the art and science of i)rofitable poultry 
keeping. The yards are neat, economical and ])ractical, in the hands of a 
manager of experience, and the 300 laying pullets manifest their appreciation 
by laying 180 eggs i:)er day. The breeds include pedigreed Bufif and White 
Or])ingtons. \\'hite Wyandottes and White Leghorns. Electric incubators 

[58] 





Thr RirrrbiiiiL- and Rdhcrts' Poultry yards arc :^ood abject lessons in .uuccssi iil 

chicken farming. 

and Ijrooders are used. From this nucleus many other )ards are Ijeini;- 
started. 

On an alfalfa ranch southwest of Riverbank, B. D. Austin is keeping 
Pekin ducks. Mammoth Bronze turkeys and Red Orpington fowls. There 
were over 300 ducks and fifty turkeys when the count was taken, and all 
were doing finely. As the larger part of the sales are for breeding purposes 
the receipts are considerably larger than in the commercial yards, but the 
expenses also are larger. Regarding the ducks, they raised 500, marketed 
250, averaging five pounds, at 17 cents, $212.50, at a cost of about $100, 
leaving a profit of $112.50. They also marketed last year from 2 8/10 acres, 
13 tons and 1,784 pounds of peaches at $30 a ton at the cannery, which was 
at the rate of $140 per acre. This year the crop is much heavier. 

Big Moncx from Cherries and Pears 
The following data was given the writer on the ground by a practical 
orchard man and may be relied upon as entirely correct : Cherries ; Casalegno 
has 86 trees about 18 years old that have produced over 12 tons, selling at 
from 7 to 8 cents, with the first hundred boxes or so considerably higher. 
At 7y2 cents the crop is worth $150 per ton. or $1,800 for the 86 trees. 
They make a crop four years out of five and have been known to yield 18 
or 20 tons, and one tree a thousand pounds. The trees are large and healthy 
and apparently good for many years to come. Pears : There are six acres 
of Bartletts in the Casalegno orchard that have ])ro(luced 90 tons of canning 
fruit at $40 a ton. Blight is prevented by careful pruning. Peaches, in the 
Coleman orchard netted over $1 a tree at three years old, producing a box 
to the tree. The sixteen-year-old orchard is good for 12 to 14 tons per acre. 
French prunes yield 12 and 14 tons to the acre and bring $30 to $40 a ton. 
Apricots yield 12 to 15 tons, or 2jX to 3 tons dried, and the dried fruit, of 
good quality, is worth 9 to 10 cents, and often as high as 15 cents. Almonds 
will run from 1.800 to 3,500 pounds. — and some years no crop, or very 
little. The Stuart antl Coleman orchards. 8 to 12 years, will average a ton 

1591 



or more to the acre, and other orchards wiU do as well, or better. The above 
data are for mature orchards, on the best of land. 

On a Si.v-.lcrc K a itch 
Some men have the knack of makint;- thint^s grow, and grow well, on a 
small piece of gronnd. while other men have the hardest kind of a time to 
make a living off 640 acres. ]\Iidway between Oakdale and Riverbank, 
J. E. Stribling, on a little ranch of six acres, raised peaches, almonds, plums, 
prunes, apricots, figs, grapes and all kinds of berries (especially straw- 
berries) and general truck. He also had a patch of alfalfa and kept a horse 
and cow. pigs and poultry and two hives of bees. He sold from $1,500 to 
$2,000 worth of produce a year, besides making a living for his family. He 
did all his own work except the berry picking, wdiich cost about $300 a 
season. The ])lace is now in the hands of a new owner and the prospects 
are that he will do cjuite as well as his predecessor. 

Peas, Tomatoes, Etc. 
Peas, tomatoes, pumpkins, etc., are profitable crops in the Oakdale 
country. The Pacific Pea Packing plant is the largest of its kind on the 
Coast and a million cans or more represent this season's pack. They have 
over 500 acres in peas, 75 acres in tomatoes and 150 acres contracted. There 
are 700 acres in grain, 75 acres in milo-maize and 60 acres in black-eyed 
peas. A cement silo is to be built to take care of the pea hay for fattening 
stock. Besides the above there are 40 acres recently planted with almonds. 

Citrus Fruit 
Citrus culture, in the thermal belt at the base of the foothills, has been 
successfully demonstrated. At Knight's Ferry stands the first orange tree, 
so claimed, planted in the county, a Washington navel, now about fifty years 
old, and thrifty and vigorous. At Orange Blossom, just east of Oakdale. 
there are several fine groves, that of Capt. W. A. Bain in particular, of twelve 
acres, now sixteen years old, com])aring favorablv with any grove in the 
State. Here the cro]) is marketed before Christmas and has the advantage 
of the nearby and northern markets. ( )range Blossom honey is true to its 
name, exceeding in delicac\- the famed honev of Hymettus. 

Oakdale 

Oakdale, lying with her cheek u])on the brown hills of the Sierras and 
her feet l)athed in the cool waters of the Stanislaus, has few rivals in the 
California beauty contest. Her Italian gardens, white in spring with the 
bloom of orchards; her oak-shaded ])aradise of ])oultry ; her berry ])atches 
and ])ea farms ; her rose-bowered homes and efficient schools ; make her 
singularly attractive among the many fine towns of the San Joaquin Valley. 

[60] 




The OraiiL^c Blassoin Colony, at the base of the Sierra foothills, is true to its name. 

The center of a seventy-thousand-acre irrii^'ation (hstrict, Oakdale is on 
the east-side branch of the Southern Pacific, the Santa I'e Oak(hde branch 
and the Sierra R. R.. giving access to the mid-valley and the bay cities on 
the one hand and the mining- and lumbering centers of Tuolumne and Cala- 
veras counties on the other. Flour and feed mills, planing mills, gas works, 
three banks with deposits of three-cjuarters of a million, a weekly and a semi- 
weekly newspaper, municipal water plant and municipal swimming pool, and 
a creamery that has increased its output in a year's time from three hundred 
to eight hundred pounds daily and will be turning- out a thousand pounds 
dailv before the close of the vear. 



Riverbank 

Rk'crlnuik is on the Santa I'e, just half way between San Francisco and 
Fresno, on the south bank of the Stanislaus River at what was called Bur- 
neyville Ferry in the Argonaut days. It is a junction and division point, with 
the Santa Fe"s shops and roundhouse and a big water tank that assures the 
best of fire protection. ( The railroad's a])]M-opriations were about 
$2,000,000.) Without anv jniblicity or "uplift" work. Riverbank comes as 
near being a model industrial town and "'garden city" as they make them. 
Where three vears ag-o there was nothing but a grain field, there are now 
shops and stores, a pay-roll of $23,000 a month, a fine brick bank with 
$40,000 in deposits, the best water (')'i-W/100 pure), electric-lighted .street? 
with wires in conduits, gas, sewers and cement sidewalks, an up-to-date 
"open-air" school, a board of trade and a lively newspa])er. Selling con- 
tracts and public sentiment alike fc^-bid saloons. Riverbank is not only in 
the center of a rich agricultural and fruit country, but is a fine illustration 
of the ancient phrase: nis in iirhs ( for which see the school teacher). The 
population, at latest reports, was 1,200. .\bout the town are some of the 
best .soils of the Oakdale district. 

Thalhciiii has no brass band nor any booster club: it i^n't in the adver- 
tising- books, nor. until recently, in the railroad folders, but Thalheim is not 

[61] 



worryini;-. If the tourist or the homeseekor comes to Thalhcini he will tiiul 
nobody to welcome him ; all hands are in the field. Nobody is at the station 
to see the train come in ; the alfalfa must be cut, the cows milked and the 
.stock fed. Thalheim is five miles north of Oakdale, 25 miles from Stock- 
ton, and the most northerly town in the Oakdale district, The people are 
mainly Germans, and their alfalfa farms, dairies and poultry yards are well 
kept and profitable. Recently many acres of orchards, both fruit and nuts, 
have been set out and will soon be in l)earin<;-. The shipments of produce 
from Thalheim attracted the attention of the Southern I'acific officials last 
year and they erected a $12,000 station. 

Knight's Ferry, the county-seat from 1865 to 1871, when it lx>asted some 
1.500 inhabitants, has an interesting record in the early history and literature 
of the State. Here Bret Harte and Mark Tw-ain listened to the stories of 
the Argonauts from Occident to orient, and here the future hero of Appomat- 
tox courted and won the sister of the trader and Indian agent. Knight's 
Ferry has not so many people as in the days of the mining pros])erity. but 
its picturesque location, its fine mill-site and its beautiful gardens testify to a 
bright future when Knight's Ferry shall lie known as the foothill sunnner 
resort of the Stanislaus. 

The Waterford District 

N THE north side of the Tuolumne River, overlooking the valley 
towards the eastern foothills, is the old town of Waterford, where, 
as its name signifies, there was a ford on the route of the old-time 
travel to the mines and the mountain towns. The region round 
about was known as a productive grain district, and when the Southern 
Pacific built its east-side branch from Stockton south to Oakdale, Waterford 
and Hickman, heavy were the freights of grain, hay and live-stock that were 
taken out of this region. The ranches of enterprising farmers from the 
Middle West, established a reputation for their live-stock and grain, and 
higher up in the foothills flourished the orchards and vineyards of the moun- 
tain farms. Recently an irrigation district adjoining the Oakdale. Modesto, 
Turlock districts was organized under the Wright-Bridgeford act. taking 
in about 17,000 acres lying between Waterford and La Grange. 

Fruit of every kind, from the apple and plum to the fig and pomegranate, 
thrive in this region. .\p])le and ])ear orchards, producing good crops of 
the best quality, and promising young almond and walnut orchards may be 
found scattered about the country. Especial attention, however, is called 
to the advantages of this region for citrus culture, for which it is especially 
fitted. See Prof. Wickson in "California Fruits." 

Active, energetic men, with all of life before them, do well when they 
go in advance of the procession. .\\u\ Waterford wishes it to be understood 
that theirs is a town of the new era, with good schools and no saloons, and 
with a soil where everything will grow as soon as the water is provided. 

[63] 




cAn Invitation 



Brother from the East : We have gone together through the length and 
breadth of this valley county ; on the east side, in the fruitful foothills ; on 
the west side, in the sea of grain, and through the green alfalfa, orchards and 
vineyards of the mid-valley. We have seen a productiveness and a pros- 
perity not excelled and rarely equalled anywhere in the land. We have 
shown you our resources and our records, and have tried to tell a plain, 
unvarnished tale of our development, both agriculturally and socially. It 
is such a wonderful story that despite the sincerest efforts to maintain an 
attitude of reserve and moderation, we fear that we have indulged occasion- 
ally in a little mild jubilation, not so much in pride as in a natural spirit of 
thankfulness at being where we are, in a garden spot of the finest country 
on earth. We have shown you our pedigree — -average white Americans, 
most of us, from "back East," either in this generation or the last, and we 
try to be fairly hospitable, as far as the demands of our alfalfa, our fruit and 
our stock will permit. We have met with some measure of success in 
developing a fertile land and in l)uilding up a prosperous American com- 
munity. We believe that Stanislaus County is about as near Paradise as 
can be found on this mundane sphere — but it is no paradise for the lazy or 
the inefficient. You have to get your bread by the sweat of your face, same 
as we did. Sometimes it is hot — but it is hot, too, in the gardens of Hes- 
perides ; sometimes there is too much water, and sometimes, in some places, 
there is too little. We have some poor soil, even hard-pan and alkali and 
drifting sand, but take it as it runs, by and large ; good Lord, what a land 
it is ! Assuming that you are possessed of a fair degree of discretion and 
"horse sense," as well as industry and perseverance, with a reasonable 
amount of humility and willingness to learn, we invite you to come and dwell 
with us, confident that before a twelvemonth has passed you will be joining 
the chorus in singing the praises of California and Stanislaus County. We 
offer you the right hand of fellowship and will do our best to guide you. 
We want successful people for our neighbors, and the more the better. 



Information on any particular section of Stanislaus County may he secured from 
the following puhlic promotion organizations : 

STANISLAUS COUNTY BOARD OF TRADE MODESTO, CALIFORNIA 

Newman Chamher of Commerce Newman, CaHfornia 

Crow's Landing Chamher of Commerce Crow's Landing, California 

Patterson Chamher of Commerce Patterson, California 

Oakdale Chamber of Commerce Oakdale, California 

Watcrford Chamher of Commerce Waterford, California 

Hickman Board of Trade Hickman, CaHfornia 

Riverhank Board of Trade Riverhank, California 

Empire Improvement Association Empire, California 

Hughson Board of Trade Hughson, California 

Dcnair Board of Trade Dcnair, California 

Salida Chamher of Commerce Salida, California 

Modesto Chamber of Commerce Modesto, California 

Ceres Board of Trade Ceres, California 

Turlock Board of Trade Turlock, California 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



017 168 788 3 % 



